Canon Fodder
by marylinusca
Summary: Clients, etc. of Sherlock Holmes visit a public library's collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works
1. Jabez Wilson

**Author's note: **These stories, written by me, were published in _The Magic Door_, a publication by The Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection of the Toronto Reference Library. I like them so much that I want to share them with you. By the way, (struting her generous Mae West stuff) come up and see us sometime.

(All right! So I am built more like Marie Dressler! A woman can imagine she's sexy, can't she?)

**Jabez Wilson**

_The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small, fat-encircled eyes. – "The Red-Headed League"_

"Good day to you, ma'am."

"Good day, sir," I replied, when I recovered my aplomb. The Room's not open until two. If you want to read that now, I'll bring it downstairs to the Baldwin Room."

He waved a podgy hand. "I've no trouble here. It's quiet – like a regular gentleman's study." He nodded and wriggled his bottom into a more comfortable position.

"But we're not open to the public," I repeated.

He glared at me, frowning. "But you're here."

"To shelve."

"And I'm here to read." He stabbed his forefinger at the page he was reading and puffed out his chest. "I'm Jabez Wilson, the hero of this story "The Red-Headed League"."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought Sherlock Holmes was the hero."

Wilson's cheeks flamed as red as his hair. "He'd have had no case to solve, if I hadn't brought it to him. I sought out why the Red-Headed League went bust, didn't I? And when I couldn't find out, I went to the one who could, didn't I?

"'Not over bright pawnbroker' my eye!" he huffed. "I got Holmes involved, didn't I? And I got that clever Spaulding for half-wages, didn't I? So he turned out a wrong'un. Least I had him for a month. And I made near thirty pound from that League vacancy, didn't I?"

I tried to mollify him. "I see your point. The bank would've been robbed of the French gold if you hadn't made Holmes investigate the League."

"Exactly so." Wilson nodded emphatically. "No one at the Bank would've known till the Monday. And I got a good education copying out that Encyclopaedia Britannica." He wagged his finger at me. "You're never too old to educate yourself, my girl. And libraries are worth every penny to a poor man, to get what he needs into his noggin."

I took a seat opposite. "Did you continue to copy the Encyclopaedia after the case ended?"

"I kept on reading it. Mr. Holmes got the police to give me the set Duncan Ross left behind. The Ninth edition, it was. You've a set in your Main Reference Stacks. I got as far as 'M' before the Tenth came out. Got as far as 'K' in it. Started on the next, and then the next, and so on."

Wilson eyed our computer. "I was at "C" before they put it there. He flexed his fingers, wincing. "I can't tap keys too well with my arthritis. Besides, I prefer pen and paper."

He scanned the room with loving eyes. "Doubt there's much money in your lot, but I see many good companions for a long night. The "Hound" - of course you would have that. There's "Pole Star", and there's Prof. Challenger, and even old Gerard. There's "Boer War". Many a hot day I've propped open the shop door with that one. God bless Doctor Doyle!"

"You don't mind being known as a character in a story?"

"Better his than another's," Wilson said with pride. "Besides, I'm the hero. I'm remembered. Who remembers this one?" He flipped through the Strand and held it under my nose. "Or this one? A hundred years gone, yet you knew of me. And they'll know of me a hundred years from now. They'll still talk about how I saved the French gold from being stolen."

"How Sherlock Holmes -- ."

"It was my doing! I prevented it." Wilson preened. "When the movie's made, I want Sean Connery to play me. Saw him in 'The Great Train Robbery.' He could be my twin brother."

"He's older now – and bald."

"No older than I am." Wilson looked around cautiously, leaned over and cupped his hand to my ear. "And there are such things as wigs."


	2. Hatty Doran Moulton

Canon Fodder

Hatty Doran (Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton)

"Now this is cozy," the lady said, adjusting her skirt. "The way this room looks, you'd think you were right back in my time."

She sipped the excellent Red Rose tea I offered her. "Not that there's anything wrong with the rest of the place. It's bright and airy and tremendous big – like looking down the Grand Canyon – but this is my idea of a library. It feels … well, solid and important. Like there's a lot of wisdom gathered here."

"Do you like to read?" I asked.

"I do in the evenings, especially in the winter. I always was an out-of-doors woman. Am still. Ranch stock takes a lot of care, and there's keeping the kids healthy, happy and not too ornery. Reading a good tale in front of a warm fire puts the spirit back into a body." She blushed and her eyes twinkled. "Frank does too, but he's not as relaxin' as a good book."

I passed her the dish of assorted tea biscuits. "Did you ever regret not marrying Lord St. Simon?"

Mrs. Moulton laughed merrily. "Not from the second I saw my Frank looking at me from that church pew. I only married Lord Robert because Dad was keen set on it - and maybe because I sort of liked the idea of being called a lady." She smiled down at her teacup. "I'm glad Frank rescued me. Lord Robert and I wouldn't have fit together."

"Many rich American girls married peers …," I began.

"And many of them regretted it. Consuelo Vanderbilt's mom forced her to marry the Duke of Marlborough. He got the money and she got so much misery that she finally divorced him. It caused some scandal, but she didn't regret marrying that French aviator Balsan. Mind you, Jennie Churchill made good out of her marriage to Lord Randolph, and she put some drive and backbone back into that family. Winston was a credit to her.

"I know some heiresses did well from their marriages. Their husbands sure did, and so did their ancestral piles. But I think I did better. Robert was a stuffy old fogy really, with his talk of manners and living up to his exalted station. I don't know what possessed him to come out West, let alone court me. He was nice I guess, but so prim and proper. I would've been like Consuelo and divorced him after I gave him an heir – or I'd have been discreet. Frank and I married for love, and we've stayed in love through warts and bliss. We've had a long, good marriage and five of the nicest, smartest young'uns in the USA. I've no regrets."

"Did your dad accept your marriage to Frank?"

"He had to, didn't he?" She laughed. "But once he simmered down, he agreed we did right. All he wanted was the best for me, and being with him and Frank's been just that."


	3. Stamfords

**Stam ... I mean Stanford's**

"... After you left I sent down to Stamford's for the Ordnance map of this portion of the moor, and my spirit has hovered over it all day. …" -- _The Hound of the Baskervilles_ Chapter 3.

"E. Stanford, 26 Cockspur Street, Charing Cross. Agent for Ordnance Survey Maps."

-Listed in Karl Baedeker's _London and Its Environs : Handbook for Travellers_ (1896)

----------------------------

"It's a very nice display," I said to the brisk little man who was arranging maps and travel books in the case outside the Baldwin Room, "but do you think any one will notice it?"

"I don't see why not." Mr. Stanford took a step back, frowning, scrutinizing the effect. "Holmes and Doyle traveled extensively, and these maps and books show the lay of their land. People will surely be interested."

He moved a Baedeker's Great Britain (1887) a touch to the left, so that the light would catch the gilded letters, and beamed. "I think we've displayed the wares to advantage, don't you?"

In the case with the Baedeker's was a reprint of the Bradshaw's August 1887 Railway Guide, Findlay Muirhead's Blue Guide to Switzerland (1930), two reprints of Ordnance Survey maps – one of the Marylebone area of London and one of the Devonshire moors – and several books about London.

"I wish we could get more in. It's amazing what both your collections – nay, all your collections – have to offer; but I've thousands of choice items back in my store." He gave me a stern look, as if I was responsible for the paucity of display space. "And they are originals."

"Mr. Stanford. We are grateful that you consented to set up this display and deliver a lecture about Sherlock Holmes using your maps. The library had to consider the insurance … and we had the reproductions … ."

The little man shook his head pityingly. "My dear girl, there is nothing so thrilling as unfolding the very map Holmes brooded over to solve the mystery of the Hound."

"And you have that map?"

"My proudest possession," he declared. "Holmes gave it to me himself upon his retirement. It's framed up high on the back wall of my shop, so folks can glimpse it through the windows."

"And go inside to buy your other maps and guidebooks?"

Stanford's eyes twinkled. "Of course. They can't resist buying a map from the Great Detective's bespoke agent – especially you Americans."

"North Americans, please, Sir."

"Whatever," he replied dismissively. He took out his handkerchief and daintily rubbed a smudge off the glass case. Then he stood back and beamed at it. "This is going to be a great display. The best you'll see. People will say they never learned so much in one place." He heaved a sigh. "If only we had more space to show everything we have!"

He jabbed his finger at the books on the cart beside me. "Here's Philip Weller on the _Hound of the Baskervilles: Hunting the Dartmoor Legend_. A handsome volume. Wonderful picture of the Hound on the cover. It would've been just right, but we can't fit it in. There's the Phillimore book on Devon's history from your closed stacks – and I daresay there's more like it there. Good books – brim full of information – but your public won't know you have them because they're not showcased." He tisked and tutted me. "How can you offer your wares if the public can't see them? We've the map of the moors in this case from your map collection and a Toronto City Directory showing a list of Boot and Shoe Makers but there's not enough room for everything. We could've tied everything about 'The Hound of the Baskervilles" together in this display if you had ordered a larger case."

He shook his head at the treasures he could not crowd in and heaved another lugubrious sigh. "You won't get customers if you don't show your stock."

I sighed back. "I'm not the 'Powers that Be', Mr. Stamford. This is the case they allot to our displays. And our users are not called 'customers'. They're 'patrons'."

"If you wish them to use your services, they are 'customers'. And I am not _Stam_ford. I am _Stan_ford."

"You're "Stamford" in _The Hound of the Baskervilles_."

What a tirade ensued from the little man! "Misprint! Misprint! Will I ever be free of that misprint? Over a hundred years of fools pointing it out to _me_ when it was Doctor Watson's error. Have I not taken him to task for it?"

"I'm sure you have," I said meekly. I looked around for a colleague. A librarian. My department head. Anyone to cage this tiny tiger I roused.

"I am a respected cartographer. Edward Stanford is known the world over. I am in _Baedeker_. My shop is still open. _Stanford's_ 12-14 Longacre, Westminster. WC2E. Google my name. Stanford's London finds me all the time."

"Mr. Stanford, I'm sorry! I did not mean to offend you. Really! I'm sure you're greatly respected. You're certainly world famous."

He pouted. "Under a misprint."

"Under your right name. And I'm grateful - I really am - that you consented to help me with my display."

Mr. Stanford glared me over. Then he shook himself and took a steadying breath.

"You're very welcome. Please forgive my unjustafied ire; but take a lesson, you and your fellow scriblers. Proofread before you publish."


	4. The Woman

**"The Woman"**

"Tut! Tut! In my day, we were more discreet about such things."

The laughing voice sounded very feminine and worldly wise. She pointed a slim, manicured and polished forefinger to the tabloid lying on the table between us, at the article about another domestic triangle in the Royal Family, and shook her head. "What would the Queen say?"

I looked up into merry eyes. The woman looked in her early thirties. Her linen slacks and a red silk blouse set off her proportioned and poised figure beautifully. Why should she say "in my day" as though she were my great-grandmother?

"Because I _**am**_ of your great-grandmother's generation," she replied sweetly.

"How did -- ?"

"I know what you were thinking? I know more than most fictional characters. You also have very transparent features." She held out her hand. "Irene Norton, neé Adler."

I know I shook her hand. I hope I had the good manners to introduce myself, but I was stunned. Irene Adler - the chic, the famous Irene Adler - in a McDonald's?

She seated herself across from me, her eyes still laughing. "You write those "Canon Fodder" pieces, don't you? Why have you not requested an interview with me? Most reporters do."

"You seldom grant interviews."

"And when I do, I tell each inquirer a different tale, _eh bien_? But I wish to talk to you. I am put out that you talked to Hattie Moulton and not to me. After all, I am 'The Woman'."

Taken aback, I replied politely "I would have interviewed you first; but your husband set certain conditions regarding editorial control."

Ms. Adler raised her eyebrows. "Ah, yes. Godfrey is so protective and legal minded. Besides, the press twists my every word and action to suit the rulers of Bohemia and Berlin. The story published in the Strand, for instance. It was biased throughout in favour of King Wilhelm."

I demurred. "Many readers think you came off best and he a poor third."

"Many readers have not read my side of the story."

This was too good to pass up. "And you consent to be interviewed by me?"

She inclined her head. A tiny smile hovered on her lips. "No holds barred."

"When?"

"Why not here and now?"

I was not prepared for this. "Here?" I squeaked. "In a McDonald's?"

"And now." Her eyes challenged me. "Or I'll take my story to _The Baker Street Journal_."

Under her amused gaze, I wiped a ketchup splatter off the table, fumbled frantically for a pen and the back of the tray liner, and fumbled even more frantically for an intelligent question.

"If you will order me chicken salad and a large coffee?" she asked. "I have no Canadian currency, and I do not believe that poorly dressed girl will accept old shillings and new pence." Her eyes added. _"You will have found your question by the time you return." _She dismissed me with a dainty wave and picked up my tabloid in her long, lovely fingers. I gave her order to the counter clerk, paid for it and brought it to the table. She set down the paper and looked at me, very much amused.

"No. The Queen would not approve of this at all."

"Why should the Queen care about what I read in my spare time?"

"My dear child! If the Queen were Victoria, she would have thrown a decorous fit that any one of her subjects read _**this**_. Her great great great great grandson's antics are spread out in the gutter press - in colour! British Royalty certainly has not progressed, but, as dear Alice Keppel said, in our time we conducted our affairs better, and with discretion. We did not open our reputations to the mob view."

She, watched, amused, as I counted off the 'greats' on my fingers. "Not that I did not feel for Princess Diana. I did. I was so nearly in her situation. Still, I was quite diverted by her going very much her own way. Like gander, like goose. But these scandals, including hers, are so childish, so amateurish, so poorly conducted. No style. No panache even. Quite embarrassing to all, especially to the monarch - and the first rule of royal scandal is 'Never, ever, embarrass the King and Queen'. It is almost an act of treason because it exposes your country to the ridicule of other nations."

"You should talk. You nearly caused a scandal in Bohemia."

"Me? Wilhelm created the scandal. I behaved impeccably. " She paused to nibble a lettuce leaf. "You know French Fries are bad for your health?"

"Never mind that! How can you say King Wilhelm created the scandal? You blackmailed him with your ultimatum to show that picture to his fianceé."

"I should have sent it to that poor sheep Clotilde - if only to open her eyes. She was kept such an innocent about men. So many gentlewomen were and it's wrong, then and now."

Irene Adler caught my gaze in hers. "Her father, the King of Scandinavia, had his own lights o' love. Nearly all princes did. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, went right through Burke's Peerage, taking so many pretty ladies to bed that when he was crowned King Edward VII, the press called the spot where the duchesses and countesses sat "The King's Loose Box."

"That was the way things were," she continued. "A prince was expected to have lovers and sew his wild oats before he married - and even after he married, once he sired his heir. Everyone in the know knew, but the press kept quiet - or were muzzled by the State Censor and the State Police. That was the protocol of such arrangements - as was the protocol of the prince giving his inamorata a parting gift after their affair ended. That is why I was angry at Willy. He not only left me with nothing, after I had given up my career and respectability for love of him; but he insulted me by acting as though we could still be lovers, without considering my inclinations in the least."

"Did you not want to 'continue' after his marriage?"

"I did not want to share him with any woman, but he would not let me refuse. In fact he took my consent for granted."

She bit down on her lip, obviously fighting her emotion "I loved him, fool that I was. No just because he was heir to a kingdom. Not because he was so masterful, coming to my dressing room night after night, showering me with flowers and jewels. Because he was handsome and exciting and could meet my lust for an unfettered life. Because we were equals : in energy, in recklessness, in passion."

"You loved him."

"Yes. I did - and I thought he would have the courage to spurn an arranged marriage and openly declare me his wife."

I gasped and thought _"What a scoop!" _

"You were married?" I managed to say.

"Of course we were married. Not in the Cathedral in the sight of all men; but in a little chapel, in the sight of God and a few intimate friends. The picture he was so keen to take from me was our wedding picture."

"But he denied that there had been a secret marriage."

"He had to, and his friends had to if they wanted to keep their lands and their lives. That photograph was the only evidence I had that he could not contradict. I had to keep it close and hide it well, for my own revenge at the time, and for my safety thereafter."

"So your marriage to Godfrey Norton was bigamous."

Irene Adler shrugged a little French shrug. "I fell in love with Godfrey and he with me. If the King denied our marriage, then why may not I?"

"I hated the King by then," she continued. "He gave me nothing in return for all I gave up for him. No title. No lands. No money. He repudiated our love, so I repudiated his lust. He tried to confine me. I escaped him and he hunted me across Europe. Covertly of course. If it were known openly that he was chasing his lover, he would be the laughing stalk of the entire world. I taunted him with that. "Take another wife and I'll show everyone what a chivalrous gentleman you are, Your Majesty." He lacked the courage to be honourable and honest. I wanted him to suffer for the wrongs he did to me. I could make him a monk, and I would made him a fool if he pledged his body and kingdom to another woman."

She smiled, and the flame in her eyes damped down to a warming glow. "Godfrey was all Wilhelm could never be: honest, courageous, honourable, loving. He gave up his career, and his good reputation, to elope and marry an 'adventuress'. He put his life in danger to wed me and protect me. How could I not love and honour him, forsaking all others? I did, and I still do."

"May I ask an impertinent question?"

"Of course. That is why were are here."

"I can see that you love your husband; but were you also attracted to Sherlock Holmes?"

"Because he was attracted to me?" she teased. "That is not an original question."

"He called you 'The Woman'." I said defensively.

"And I am flattered to be thought so worthy an opponent by the illustrious Mr. Sherlock Holmes," she replied serenely. "But I was never in love with him, and I daresay he was never in love with me."

She paused. "Although I do confess I have long envied Doctor Watson. I would have liked to share in the Great Detective's work, and to have had his friendship. We could have had great successes and fine adventures, the three of us. It has been a lasting regret."

"Godfrey did not satisfy there?" I gently probed.

"Godfrey was trained as a lawyer and lawyers are cautious creatures. They desire order and stability above all things. I am Chaos. I scatter, not gather.

"Poor Godfrey! I fling him about in my restless wind, and he takes it as no one else would. You know that he is my manager - and a fine one. I could not have re-established my concert career without him."

"I don't recall seeing ... "

"Under assumed names, of course. Irene Adler must stay dead, although it is hardly a secret that I am alive. Mr. Sherlock Holmes knows. So did the German secret services, since they used him as their agent to me after the death of the King of Bohemia. The suzerainty of Bohemia was in dispute between the German and Austrian kaisers. Whoever held the papers confirming the marriage between myself and Wilhelm held a big stick over the head of Wilhelm's heir. We hid, but Mr. Holmes finally found us. I relinquished the papers to him for an ample sum, but I did not give up the photograph. I still relied on that to safeguard my life."

I looked up from my scribbles, perplexed. "But how could it, if the King was dead?"

"I wanted to be left in peace. I would play 'dead' so long as I could live without threats or further interference. If I was threatened, wounded or killed, Godfrey or our lawyers would use the photograph to resurrect the scandal. Mr. Holmes agreed to my terms and obtained for me the written agreements from the Imperial and the Bohemian governments."

"So you stayed mute until now."

Irene Adler gently shook her head. "I did not stay entirely mute all these years; but there were two world wars and much conflict before, between and since. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and of Soviet power. The separation of Czechoslovakia. Bohemia lies in the Slovak Republic now. I spoke guardedly, but who listened?"

I looked at her steadily. As to looks and brains, she would have made an admirable Queen Consort; but I wondered. A woman so clever, so intelligent. Would she have wanted to be merely a figurehead queen? And since she mentioned the two world wars ...

"Ms. Adler, are you Jewish?"

She was not taken aback. She laughed long and merrily. "Touché! I was waiting for that question. My family was christianized; but yes, I bear the 'tainted bloodline'. So, 'How dare a Jewess marry an Germanic prince and hope to be Queen of a Christian country?' My girl, I did not want the crown. I wanted the man, and the crown came with him." She paused, then said softly. "And the crown separated us. Wilhelm's subjects would have deposed him rather than acknowledge me as his wife."

She shook herself. "But I did expect a reward for services rendered. A title and a pension. What I got was an indelicate proposition. He wanted both a respectable consort in his State Bed and me to tumble in an adjoining little chamber. I refused to share him or take his leavings. To have accepted would have shamed me."

I cleared my throat. "Do you have the photograph with you now?"

"No. It is in a very, very secure place. No spy will find it and no one but me will see it."

I sighed, disappointed. "One final question. Doctor Watson seemed to be a man who appreciated women and enjoyed their company. Why did he dislike you?"

Ms. Adler gave me an enigmatic smile. "Why do you think he disliked me?"

He wrote of you as 'the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory'."

"So I was to the world. So the King of Bohemia made me. But Doctor Watson appreciated my beauty, and my kindness to the man I thought injured. He said that he felt ashamed of the part he played in that little comedy disception, and played his part only out of loyalty to his friend. You said yourself that I came off best in his account. He disliked the sordid situation. He may have resented the feelings I inspired in his friend Sherlock Holmes, though I had more reason to envy him than he had to be jealous of me."

"Had you not loved Godfrey Norton ...?"

"No. It would not have happened. We would have suited well together, but it would not have happened. Mr. Holmes was too much his own man, and I was too much my own woman."

She paused. "Although I would have accepted, if he had asked me. I would have wanted it to happen."

Books about Irene Adler

Douglas, Carole Nelson: The Adventuress, Femme Fatale, Castle Rouge, and her other novels about Irene Adler


	5. A Policeman

**A Policeman from "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder"**

The man seated in our pink Victorian chair, chuckling over _The Return of Sherlock Holmes,_ was built like a house. Not _any_ house. Casa Loma. The White House. Buckingham Palace. General Motors. Whatever big, broad place dominates your landscape.

And he was every inch a policeman. "You can always tell a copper," Wiggins once told me. That alert and steely "What trouble are you up to now?" gaze, even through twinkling eyes. Though I had the right to be in the Room and he did not - the ACD Room is closed Wednesdays - I gulped and backed a step.

He rose to his full six feet thirteen inches, and stood like a soldier 'at ease'. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to startle you."

The Magic Door rattled. The six Napoleon busts shivered and clinked against each other on their shelf above _The Strand_. The bottles on top of the card index tottered, fell and splintered to pieces.

There was no room in the Room for his voice.

I swallowed hard. "I'm growing used to it, Inspector …?" He looked too young to be Gregson and too old to be Stanley Hopkins. He was not at all like the description of Lestrade.

"Detective Sergeant Alfred Beagle," the man boomed, catching the pipe, Doyle's photograph and the tobacco filled Persian slipper they fell off the mantelpiece. "I was just reading about myself when you came in." He dropped slipper, pipe and picture on the padded chair and, marking the spot with his forefinger, read aloud:

"_Now we must see if we can find that witness for you, Lestrade. Might I ask you all to join me in the cry of 'Fire'? Now then, one, two three -- "_

"_Fire!" we all yelled._

"_Thank you. I will trouble you once again."_

"_Fire!"_

"_Just once more, gentlemen, and all together."_

"_Fire!" The shout must have rung over Norwood._

It certainly rang through the Room. Two Napoleons, one Toby jug, the picture of William Gillette as Holmes, the frame surrounding Mr. Cameron Hollyer's shilling and BSI investiture, and the vase in the shape of a lady's high boot smashed upon the floor. The glass doors of the Cabinet imploded. Cracks like pistol shots heralded the domino collapse of bookshelves around the Room.

The Sergeant did not seem to notice the mess he caused. He just chuckled and said, "Inspector Lestrade fair goggled and even Dr. Watson looked taken aback when that little geezer ran out of the wall all smoke grimed with cobwebs stickin' in his hair. No doubt I looked just as dumbstruck; but Mr. Holmes just lounged against the wall with a grin a cat would envy. He was a right showman. Houdini's not in his class at all."

He laughed again. The glass box holding the Reichenbach stone shattered. So did 3 mugs, 6 busts, the clock, the computer screen and a statue of Queen Victoria.

"Sorry about that," he said.

The remaining shelves collapsed, spilling fragile copies of "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Sign of Four" over the previous wreckage, _The Captain of the Pole-Star _over_ Sir Nigel _and _The White Company, Holy Clues _over_ In Bed with Sherlock Holmes, _and all five (or is it seven?) fat volumes of _The Universal Sherlock Holmes _over _The New Revelation._

Then the fire bell rang.

"I guess I don't know the full strength of my voice," the sergeant said. Then he disappeared.

I just stood there, stareing at the shattered spines and crumpled pages, hearing the sirens of the fire trucks grow louder and shriller, calculating the lien the Library would put on my salary for the next century. Should I still get a salary. An library assistant's lot is not a happy one.

Three books about the history of the Metropolitan Police

Garforth, John. A Day in the Life of a Victorian Policeman. 363.23094 G13

Dell, Simon. The Victorian Policeman (Shire Booklet no. 428)

Fido, Martin and Keith Skinner. The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard

363.20942 F37 2000


	6. A Certain Marysue

**A Certain Marysue**

_Author's note: I can't submit this one to 'The Magic Door' because my muse and marysue is not a canonical character - and how she resents that! I mean she resents it that she is 1) not in the Sherlock Holmes canon and 2) that I call her a marysue. She claims that if she is a marysue, then so is Dr. Watson. She also insists that I no longer imprison her inside my head. She wants OUT and she will not let any other character speak to me until she is OUT. So ... here she is._

One problem with one's own creations is that they will confront one at the most inconvenient moments.

"Please, Fraulein Doktor. Don't bother me now," I begged. I have to restore this mess to order before we open."

"Then why are you typing instead of cleaning?"

Marlena Falke did not wait for my reply, but swished back her auburn hair and strolled around the Room, examining the strewn books, the collapsed shelves, the broken ceramics. She knew I was flummoxed, just like she knew she was right. She always is right, even when she's wrong. I love the lady, but she is maddening.

"Because you are inspiring me again!" I told her. "Every time I'm supposed to be working, you enter my head with a new idea or an old complaint."

She shrugged. She has a graceful shrug.

"Don't do that! You are a marysue because I feel like a cathumping moose next to you."

"That is no fault of mine." She tested the strength of the chairs, then sat on the long, heavy oaken table.

"Mar-len-aaaa ... ! You were a clerk here once. You know that is against the Rules."

"It is the only stable piece of furniture in the Room."

"If you intend to stay, you could help me sort out the debris."

"I will, after a carpenter repairs those bookcases. But that is not why I am here. I have come to scold you."

That did not surprize me. Like most physicians, den mothers, and marysues, she cannot resist saying 'I told you so' at every occasion.

So I sighed. "Well, what did I do wrong this time?"

She glanced through one of the books - probably _Round the Red Lamp. _She's a sucker for medical stories. I can't say a word when _House_ is on TV.

I hoped she would concentrate on the story and leave me get on with my job. No such luck.

"In your vignette about the policeman, you did not describe the Room adequately. How can your readers imagine the extent of this damage around us if you do not 'set the stage'?"

"All the writer's guides say it's boring to begin with a description."

"In that case, it was necessary." Marlena slid off the table. "So now we will correct your mistake."

She scanned the Room and briskly commanded me to take dictation. I asked her if she thought I was Superwoman - or if she thought she was. I had not given her x-ray vision when I created her.

"Would you rather clean this mess alone or with my help?" she challenged.

I rolled my eyes "Taking dictation as ordered, ma'am."

"At last! Begin. The room is L shaped -- "

"No it isn't. It's shaped like a swan's head and neck."

"Like the goose with the carbuncle in its crop," Marlena amended. "You are sitting in the crop."

"Geese don't have crops."

"Do you want to argue with Sherlock Holmes, John H. Watson and Arthur Conan Doyle, Madam Carbuncle? Their goose had a crop, so this one does. All walls, except for the tempered and thick glass door, are lined with bookshelves seven feet high."

"Were lined," I said, looking ruefully at the books scattered over the floor.

Doktor Falke pretended not to hear me. "There is a long, narrow window at the end of the neck, or at the tip of the 'L'. --."

"'Ell' on earth, taking your dictation," I grumbled.

"I am speaking slowly. Why do you refuse to lean shorthand? I keep inspiring you but you can't follow me because you write like a tortoise. So you lose all my good work and nothing gets typed and posted.

"Resume, bitte. The bookshelves are - or were - made of pinewood. The long refectory-style table in the center is made of oak -- ."

" -- And weighs several tons. The carpet beneath is worn, possibly Persian in style and always trips me up when I'm shelving."

Marlena stood gazing around, as if lost in thought. "I shelved in a room like this, in the old Central Library. In the 1930's. Three quarters of a century ago." She looked at me, at the broken computer monitor, then turned at looked through the glass door to the modern library outside. "I did then what you do now. Some things change but shelving stays the same."

She shook her shoulders and continued, briskly. "In the cabinet are letters from Conan Doyle to his publisher Herbert Greenhough-Smith, miniature books, first editions and several books bought at auction from Doyle's personal library."

"We have some notebooks that he and Lady Conan Doyle used on their tour of Canada in 1914," I added. "A good thing they were not in the Room when this happened."

"So is it good that this stayed intact." She gently touched the Bigelow-Redmond card index cabinet - a handsome item, also oak by it's veneer. "I filed catalogue cards into such a cabinet. I was young then, so naive. So much has changed in so long."

"There's the tantalus and the gasogene." I scribbled them onto my list. "The pipes. The two old fashioned chairs... No. Four. Two stuffed and two banker's chairs. Six wooden chairs, two benches and a kick-stool to reach the top shelves. The librarian's desk. The old microscope. The old medical bottles. Empty of course. The Napoleon busts. How are we going to replace those? And all those plaster statuettes of Holmes? The tin street sign: "Borough of St. Marylebone. Baker Street N.W. 1" That's okay. The drawing of 'The Great Mouse Detective' and the one of Rathbone and Bruce. Mr. Hollyer's Baker Street Irregulars shilling. The pipe, the rock from the Reichenbach, etc. on the fireplace mantel. The new books and the old books, with no room for more. I wish people would cease writing Holmes stories until the Library builds a bigger Room. There are the bound issues of the _Strand._ The Rathbone/Bruce audio cassettes. The Brett series videocassettes. The _Baker Street Journal, Canadian Holmes_ and all the other periodicals. In short, everything that I have to reshelve or sweep away. ... I wish there was whiskey in that tantalus."

"You have never drunk spirits."

"Looking at this mess, I could learn to. Do you think the readers will 'sense' the Room from this list?"

Marlena heaved a sigh. "Perhaps not from a list. But there is an ambiance here. A sense of the past. Staring down through the window, I could almost believe the street was gas-lit, and hear the clopping of hooves."

"Or the clanging of the old streetcar of your day."

"This place is timeless. It is something for me to take to the men in the tunnel -- in that distressingly distant day when you will write about them again." She smiled. "Andrew is a great fan of Sherlock Holmes. So is Herr Schultz - a very great fan. I can't disappoint them, so write me back into their world."

"But you will help me clean up first?"

"When those bookcases are repaired, creator mine, and you write about me again. Not until then."


	7. The Napoleon of Crime

**The Napoleon of Crime**

His eyes, deep set beneath a ridge of brow and a high domed forehead, flicked over the room, at the broken glass and ceramics, the tumbled books. Reptile eyes. Hard. Cold. Gimlet eyes. They might have been steel blue. They might have been gun metal grey. They were fixed on me though his head oscillated from side to side. He stooped slightly. His nose looked thin, pinched. His mouth was tight, sneering.

He chuckled. A dry sound, like dead leaves give when crunched underfoot. "I could not have had it done better," he remarked, his voice as dry as his laugh.

He leaned upon a cane made from an expensive wood - probably mahogany - with a yellowed ivory knob. Skull shaped and yellowed, like his head.

He half hobbled, half shuffled to one of the upholstered chairs beside the fireplace in the corner of the room. He smirked as he laid a finger on Doyle's _Phineas Speaks,_ the only book on the shelf beside the chair. Then he groped for the armrest. I came forward hesitantly, grasped his arm and helped steady him into the chair.

A harsh and unwilling "Thank you," came from his thin lips as he adjusted the tails of his frock coat. His voice was like gravel. "Excuse me. I took a nasty fall in Switzerland, and an old man tires more rapidly as each year passes."

He motioned to the other chair.

I shook my head. I did not want to be within his reach. "I have to clean up the room," I said.

He shot me a gimlet stare. He raised his cane as if to hit me, then struck the floor thrice. Six burly men, or clothed gorillas, materialized.

"Shelve. Sweep." The old man swept the point of his cane in a horizontal arc that encompassed the Room. "Clean".

The men immediately and silently commenced work.

The old man flicked his eyes back to my face. "Sit."

I sat.

"You know who I am," he intoned. It was a statement. An accusation. I sat rigid with fright.

"You do speak. Who Am I?"

I could not trust the air to leave my lungs. I licked my lips. "Professor James Moriarty."

He shook his head impatiently. "Liam Moriarty. That fool Watson had a fixation on the name 'James' so he used it for almost all his villains. James - Seamus - was my elder brother, the Colonel. He and Moran started in the same regiment - the Royal Munsters. I met Moran through him."

"But Dr. Watson wrote you were James."

"_Sassenachs!_ If a name looks like 'James', they say it **is** 'James'. He impatiently wave it away. "I am Professor _Liam_ Moriarty. My brother is Colonel _James_ Moriarty. Commit it to memory."

He glared around the room. "Another shrine to _him_! How many are there now? And a new one in Portsmouth!"

"Well, Mr. Lancelyn Green had bequeathed quite a collection to Portsmouth - but it's of Doyle, not just Holmes. Your creator."

"_His_ creator!" The Professor fidgeted and made as if to rise. "Get me on my feet and take me outside. The atmosphere reeks of _him_."

I hoisted him out of the chair and helped him through the Magic Door into the main area of the Library. "If you hate him so much, why did you come here?"

"I heard the Room was blown down by a policeman. A _policeman! _I had to see the damage." Moriarty wheezed and chuckled. "The Revenge of Scotland Yard! Who would have believed _they_ would avenge _me_, even in this small way? O frabjulous day! Caloo! Calay!"

Professor Moriarty oscillated his craggy skull. "Being the Napoleon of crime is not all fun and conquest," he informed me. "It is a twenty-four hour a day commitment, every day. Including holidays." He smiled. "Especially holidays. Could you even guess at the takings by my pickpockets and shoplifters during the Christmas season? That is chicken feed to what comes in daily from my other businesses; but I do love taking during the season of giving."

"May I ask what are your 'businesses' are?"

"The usual. Extortion. Prostitution. White collar crimes. The odd murder. Espionage and international terror."

"Why did you become a criminal? You were a respected academic."

Moriarty snorted. "Respected? What value is there in the 'respect' of idiots and fools? Most of academia is made up of morons teaching dullards - and they are the smart ones. The cream of our society. The Men of Empire. Bah! They use an hundredth part of their limited intelligences. And professors are paid little more than library clerks."

"A lot more than a little, Professor," I retorted. "Compared to my salary, yours --."

"Is not enough to live as I deserve to live. I am a genius. Why should brain dead cretins live better than their intellectual masters. I was born to command. You to serve."

"Then why deign to explain yourself to me?" I asked.

He snorted. "Because Watson had smeared my memory in the mire. I'm sick of it."

"But if you care only for power," I put in. "You dont want anyone's good opinion."

"The opinion of morally satisfied fools and dolts? Humbug," he grumbled. "I don't know why I am talking to you. I don't know why it matters so - why it matters now. Holmes has had his century of praise. Why shouldn't I have mine?

"Yet, it does matter." He looked at me with an almost human look. "I want to have my say - and I want it to be the final word. I was a great man before he tossed me into the Reichenbach Falls. I want all to appreciate that, even when they hate or despise me . If they fear me, I will not have lost my power. I will have won and Holmes will have lost."

He smote his stick savagely upon the floor. "I will have won over _him_. Evil over good. Tyranny over justice. Cruelty over compassion. Power over glory. I will have won over Sherlock Holmes."

He laughed into my shocked face.

"You won't be able to resist writing my story," he said. "The villain is always more interesting than the hero. He is the 'other' The unknown. Thy mysterious. The frightening."

Moriarty grasped the edge of the balistrade and peered down the five floors of the library at the people reading, studying, conversing. A couple was snatching kisses, oblivious to the people smirking and pretending not to see them. Two men were playing chess. Another man was drinking an illict soft drink while reading a magazine.

"Dante's Inferno," he muttered. "What circle of Hell is this?"

"The fifth floor of the Toronto Reference Library," I replied. "All heroes and all villains come here eventually." I looked at him. "I've read people prefer villains to heroes. What are you to them but a hero?"

"I am amoral and immortal. I rejected straitlaced morality when I saw that it bound me, not profited me. I kept up the veneer of an upright, respectable college professor even when my stupid, so called peers sneered at me behind my back. I am a genius. I have always been a genius. Morality is for lesser men, not me. If they have the brains I have, morality and Judeo-Christian ethics forbids they use them."

"You do not believe in God?" I asked. "In Divine Retribution? Divine Law?"

"Rubbish! I believe in the survival of the fittest - and I am the most fit. I manipulate men by manipulating their desire, their greed, their fears. Selfishness drives mankind, not goodness and altruism. They think they do what they do to benefit themselves, but no! They do what they do to benefit me. I have goals and I insure that no one prevents me from my purposes."

"And power is your goal? To be master of mankind?"

He bowed. "Of course."

"That is not an original ambition," I said. "Others have said the same. The Caesars. Napoleon. Hitler. Qaddafi and Hussein. And they failed."

"Because they were not me," he replied. "They came close to success - with my help some of them - and I will come closer. I nearly had it in my grasp had it not been for that meddler Holmes." He smiled a snake's smile. "Even then he had to go outside the law to kill me."

"You had some compassion," I pointed out. "You lured Watson away instead of having him killed."

Moriarty flushed and half rose. "I did not 'lure him away'. Holmes arranged that." he snapped.

I gaped at him. "_Mr Holmes_ arranged it?"

"Of course he did! I wanted Watson dead too. I wanted their deaths to look accidental. A slip. A fall. One man grasping the other's hand. The weight of one pulling both over the precipice. That's what we would have made it look like. That was the story Moran and I would have given to the police at Rosenlui. Two hikers who saw the tragic, fatal fall of the great Mr. Holmes and his devoted companion." He brushed a mock tear from his eye. " I wanted Watson dead to prevent his exposing me to the world. as the murderer of Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to shut his mouth, dry up his pen; but Holmes shut my mouth instead."

"Holmes _intended_ to kill you?"

"Of course he did! Don't you understand? He lured me out of England by pretending to flee from me. He knew that I was behind or the beneficiary of all the thefts, robberies, murders and assaults in London. He knew - we both knew - it was either him or me. Either I destroyed him or he destroyed me. He could not have me arrested. He had no proof whatsoever that would convince a jury a mild mannered mathematician was the Napoleon of Crime. So, since he could not have me hung, he had to perform the execution on his own."

"Then why did he have Watson turn back to the hotel?"

"Use your thick head, woman! Would the moral Dr. Watson let his friend murder me? Would he led him damn his soul? So long as Watson did not witness what happened, Holmes could make up any story he pleased, and Watson, credulous fool would accept it without question. He could say that I slipped and fell. That it was a fair fight. That he killed me in self defence."

"Which he did do."

"Hah! He shot me before I shot him, and he pushed me off the ledge. Then he wrote his sad little note to Watson and left him. That is what Moran saw from his place on the ledge overlooking us."

"But Colonel Moran threw rocks at him!"

"So Holmes told his credulous friend. Perhaps Moran did throw a rock at him in frustration because his airgun would not fire. Where he was, Moran could not have hit him with a pebble, let alone a rock."

"Why didn't Moran tell the police what he saw?"

"Better to stay alive and inconspicuous and take control over what was left of our syndicate. He owed no loyalty to a dead man."

"But apparently you did not die."

"Oh yes I did. I died the moment the bullet pierced by heart. By you must have heard of parallel universes, even though your feeble mind cannot comprehend the concept. My essence can influence men and events by crossing from plane to plane. I can influence their minds though I can no longer influence them corporeally." His eyes took on a dreamy look. "I almost had it back through that dolt Hitler and his Nazis."

"Almost."

He glared at me. "I advanced him. I whispered my counsel in his ear. He would not acknowledge his debt to me. He would not give me my due. He would not share the power. He said - he actually believed - that it was all his doing. That he alone was smarter than the smartest. An insignificant little Austrian rabble rouser who could not even paint in an original style. A mediocrity. So I brought him down. My advice led him to his destruction - and half the world's as well."

"But you were an influential mathematician . Your work on the binomial theorem. Your book about the asteroid that had a European vogue. You had the respect of our peers. What went wrong?"

"Who said that anything went wrong? I was the center and the apex of a wide reaching and sophisticated criminal empire. To outward seeming I was a humble labourer for the progress of science, It amused me that everyone around me would not, could not, believe that the self effacing college professor was more powerful than kings and premiers. I slaughtered and buried my scruples under the muck of a Dublin graveyard and became the power I am."

"You were a Fenian? A member of the IRA?"

"I left any feelings for Ireland behind with my childhood and my scruples. My brother Seamus took both the name James and the Queen's shilling and rose to the exalted rank of Colonel in some God and Devil forsaken part of India. Much good it did the poor fool. Jamie truly believed that Holmes persecuted and Watson maligned an innocent man. Professor Moriarty hacked out a wry laugh. "The strangest part of the farce is that I love my dunce of a brother. He was the only human being who cared about my good name."

"How did you build your empire of evil?"

"You have a fondness for alliteration that you should curb," Moriarty said testily. "Empire of Evil. Hmm. It is not bad. I built it up in the usual way. I used the money I came with - which was just enough for a prudent scholar - to make money. I lent it out, did favours to win favours, put up the money for little crimes, then gradually bigger and bigger crimes. I put more and more people under obligation to me, one way or another, by using front men, and if anyone became a threat or a liability to me, he - or she - simply disappeared. No one cared where they had gone - particularly not the police. By the time I could append a degree to my name, I had so many layers between myself and my minions that no one who did my bidding knew it was my bidding they did."

"Except Holmes."

"Yes. Damn him."

"And except Colonel Moran."

"Yes, but so long as I lived, he knew he would live well and prosperously. Moran was a fool, but like Holmes said himself, an intelligent man is dangerous to have at your side. He might figure out how to do without you."

"How did Holmes find your secret?"

"I wish I knew. I left no spoor for him to sniff. But he discovered my connection to the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania, and my contacts in the Sinn Fein. No man is so pathetically attached to his country than an Irishman. Anything to free 'the auld sod' from the English. Maybe Brother Mycroft may have felt a strand twitch in his web. A clever observer and analyst of international affairs, Mr. Mycroft Holmes."

The largest and most brutal looking of Moriarty's minions ventured toward us. rotating his greasy cap in both his hands.

"Begging your pardon, Professor, but the job's done. We cleaned up and carted the wreckage away like you ordered us to, and set the place to rights."

Moriarty gave the Room a stern inspection. "Good. Now off with you. A pity this is all for Holmes," he said, sighing.

"It is called the _Arthur Conan Doyle_ Collection," I said. "All his fictional characters have a home here."

"Even wicked me?" The professor sneered.

The 'foreman' of his gang spoke up. "Ahem. Professor, we found these books about you while we were shelving them. Do you want us to throw them away?"

He motioned to his mates, who held out the books in question, one in each hand. John Gardner's _The Return of Moriarty _and_ The Revenge of Moriarty. _Michael Kurland's_ The Great Game _and_ The Infernal Device._

"There are others here, Professor; but those were the ones we found with your name on them."

Moriarty held out an imperious hand. The man placed _The Return of Moriarty_ in it. He flipped the pages, then silently read a passage, flipped more gages, read another passage. The did the same with the _Revenge_ and the Kurland books.

"Poppycock," he announced. "But not badly written. Mildly amusing bedtime stories to scare children and idiots."

He shot me a look. "These are kept here for anyone to read?"

I nodded, frightened at what he would do with them, and with me. Moriarty tossed the book he held into my hands, then motioned his men to put the books they held back inside the Room.

"They dared to write such drivel about me. Me! Professor Moriarty - who forgot more in a minute than they learned in a lifetime. What do they know about me? I should have their bodies thrown into a bonfire of their works. But I won't. Why should Holmes always be the hero of every scribbler's story?"

He pointed a long, bony finger at my nose. "Forget what I told you. You're not wicked enough to write the truth about my struggles and my triumphs.

"But heed and remember, scribbler. A great story must have a great villain."

I touched my forelock in mock salute. "You inspire us all, Professor."


	8. An Irregular Reading Group

**An Irregular Reading Group**

"We have received a report of stolen personal property …"

The door shut out the rest of the announcement. Sighing, I pushed the book cart into the Room, then stopped short. Five grubby children were huddled against the big table, trailing their dirty fingers beneath words on a cardboard sheet. An older looking boy stood at the head, haltingly reading aloud, "Thieves … at … work."

"That's us, innit Wiggins?" the smallest boy piped up.

Wiggins rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Alf. That's us."

Alf contemplated the picture on the card. "Don't look like us. Looks like some spook or shadow."

The other urchins laughed, then caught sight of me. Ten eyes, pseudo innocent to outright defiant, raked me.

I gave them the 'vexed librarian' voice. "You took our warning signs!"

The others wriggled but Wiggins grinned. "Well, it don't 'elp if they're on to us, do it?"

"'Does it'." I corrected. "Doesn't Mr. Holmes disapprove of stealing?"

Wiggins shrugged. "'E pays us tolerable, but not often. So we nick to buy eats."

"Do you 'nick' for Mr. Holmes?"

"On occasion. Mostly we lurk."

"Lurk?"

"'Ang about an' listen for 'im," Wiggins explained with exasperation. "That's our main job. Nobody notices us cause we're not important."

There was some hurt deep in his voice. "Who says you're not important?"

"Well we're not. Our mums send us out to fend for ourselves. Find work – if there is work – or beg or steal." He shrugged. "Too many mouths. Not enough food. Some of us … well, the street's better than living at home."

I could see tears in their cautious, feral eyes. "Do you do other things for Mr. Holmes?"

Wiggins shrugged. "Get cabs or run errands for 'im. Sometimes we trail blokes and 'ope they don't see us. The Family men'll twist your guts out if they catch you."

"Family men?" Probably "god-fathers". "Professor Moriarty's?"

"Or others. The Professor's was worst cause you never knew who 'e'd bought. Could be the beggar at the corner. Could be your best mate."

"'E knew everyfing about everyone," Alfie piped up. "Just like Mr. 'Olmes does – only 'e 'as us to find out for 'im."

"Are you 'lurking' _here_ for Mr. Holmes? Or 'nicking'?"

Wiggins scuffed one dirty foot over the other. "We was havin' a readin' class. Sorry we're in yer way." He motioned the others to follow him outside.

I stopped them. "Please stay. You're welcome here."

They gaped at me. "Really?"

"Really. The Room needs readers. Besides, I'd like your opinion of some books you're in."

The children goggled. "We're in BOOKS?"

I nodded. "You're in books." I picked one off the cart and handed it to Wiggins. "See?"

He slowly read the title aloud. "_Wiggins & Company_." He flipped through the pages. "This guy wrote poems about us!"

The other urchins crowded around him, craning their necks.

"Cor' Blimey!" they cried out, awed. "Read some of em, Wiggs!"

"Look at this one." I held out _The Irregulars … in the service of Sherlock Holmes_. "I warn you, it's scary."

"Huh! You're soft." Wiggins scoffed. He opened the book and gasped. "Pictures – just like us!"

"It's called a 'graphic novel' – a story told with pictures and words. Doctor Doyle would probably like them. He wrote scary tales. I admire the artwork, but ..."

Wiggins awkwardly patted my arm. "It's all right, Miss. Each to 'is or 'er taste."

"Thank-you." I smiled back. "Mr. Holmes is one of the few 'real book' heroes in graphic novels."

"Wow!" The group snatched the graphic novels off the shelves. I heard "oohs", "ahhs", and "Look at that!" "There 'e is!"

Wiggins looked up at me with proud eyes. "I'm ever so glad Mr. 'Olmes isn't forgotten."

"Or us!" piped up Alfie, his face beaming.

"He won't be – and you won't be." I plucked two books from the 'new books' shelf. "Here's a series by Anthony Read called _The Baker Street Boys_."

"Cor!" said Wiggins. "Does it ever end?"

"Do you want it to?"

"Oh no! But we should write the books about us." Determination shone in his face. "And I'll do it, once we learn to read."

* * *

Books cited:

Ruyle, John : Wiggins & Company : irregular verse. -- Berkeley : Pequod Press, 1999

Read, Anthony : The Baker Street Boys

Dicks, Terrance : The Baker Street Irregulars in the Case of the Blackmail Boys. 1979

Dicks, Terrance : The Baker Street Irregulars in the Case of the Missing Masterpiece.

same for Dicks, Terrance: ... crooked kids; ...ghost grabbers ; ... cop catchers; ... cinema swindle

The Irregulars -- in the service of Sherlock Holmes / written by Steven-Elliot Altman & Michael Reeves; illus. by Bong Dazo. -- Milwaulke, OR : Dark Horse Comics, 2005

An old favourite of mine:

Newman, Robert - The Case of the Baker Street Irregular : a Sherlock Holmes story. 1978

I searched the Toronto Public Library's website catalogue under "Baker Street Irregulars" under title keyword for Special Collections. [The Arthur Conan Doyle Room is a special collection. If didn't strip the URL's ...! There are quite a lot of books. Many are about the organization based in New York. Many are novels about Wiggins & Co. Good luck searching!


	9. The Curious Incident of the Librarian

**The Curious Incident of the Sub-Librarian in the Daytime**

I met him in the atrium - the section of the first floor that is open to the other four floors of the library - looking around with a keen interest. 

"Sizing up the place," I thought, sizing him up. Middle height. Glasses. Brown hair combed back from a high forehead. Pale face. Firm, thin lips. Looked very efficient - and humourless."

"Oh dear." I recalled the jokes passing among the staff when I asked, "What is a 'sub-librarian'. None of us knew, and the old Oxford Dictionary held no clue, let alone a definition.

A substitute librarian? Someone who is subordinate to a librarian, like me? A subversive librarian?

"A submarine librarian," one of my colleagues had quipped. "He can fathom anything."

"I don't think so," I replied. "This man works in the London Library. The Big London - in England. I've searched the Internet. They still exist in Britain and Ireland, but I can't tell if they have Library Science degrees or if they have other degrees and work in libraries as specialists."

My colleague shrugged. "If he's not a submarine librarian, then I'm out of my depth."

Taking in my opposite number - or my boss's opposite number - in all his austerity, I now said "So am I."

I took a deep breath, hoped I would not make a faux pas and embarrass the Library, then went to the man and introduced myself.

"How do you do?" he replied as we shook hands. "I'm am Arthur Lomax."

He looked up and around the library's interior once more, pursing his lips. "Waste of space."

"It has won awards and most people like it. It's bright -- ."

"And you must walk miles to fetch a book."

"A few yards."

"Several hundred yards, I daresay. But the waterfall is a welcoming touch. Moriyama and Teshima were the architects. I/ve read favourable reviews and now look forward to seeing it."

So we walked up to and around the second floor, up and around the third, took the public elevator to the fourth floor so Mr. Lomax could see the library through the Plexiglas wall, then through the stacks up to the fifth floor and the Arthur Conan Doyle Room. 

"I admit I am impressed by your library's collections as well as by its size - though I think so much interior space could have been used instead of wasted," he said as he sat down. "We are always needing space, so I feel strongly on the matter."

"The London Library is on St. James's Square, is it not?"

"That's correct. In the heart of Club Land, since 1845. Easy for scholars like Mr. Holmes to access our holdings, though Mr. Holmes usually sent round a boy from the Diogenes to retrieve the items he wanted.

"Mr. Mycroft Holmes."

"That is so. A omnivorous scholar, but not a walker. A man with a phenomenal memory for everything but the dates of return."

"How does the London Library differ from a public library?" 

"Your library is funded by tax revenues. The London Library is funded directly by its subscribers. They pay an annual fee to have access to all our resources. We are the world's largest subscription library, with over a million books and periodical issues."

"I've heard of Mudie's library, from reading Jane Austen's novels. Is your library the same?"

"The same and not the same. Mudie's, and W. H. Smith before it became a retail bookstore chain, lent new works from various outlets around the country. When a title went out of fashion, it was warehoused and later discarded. Thomas Carlyle founded our library on somewhat the same principle as your own - that people who do not attend university should have access to the wealth of a university's library. The second difference between your library and mine is that the London Library's collection circulates and yours does not."

"Were both the Misters Holmes subscribers?"

"Indeed they were, and Doctor Watson, as you know. Mr. Mycroft Holmes, Mr. Sherlock Holmes's elder brother, was a great borrower; though we saw little of him. He would send his requests by telegram, and we would send him the books by special messenger." He smiled. "Like all government men, Mr Holmes always wanted them right away, if not sooner. Mr. Sherlock Holmes was just the same."

I laughed. "We have such patrons too, though not few of them work for the government. What were they like as a patrons?"

Mr Lomax leaned back in his chair. "You know I shouldn't be telling tales."

"You can't be fired," I countered. "You have too much seniority, and I'm sure you know the skeletons hiding in every librarian's closet."

"Almost every skeleton. I suppose it doesn't matter to me, but your patrons are going to wonder if you keep silent about them."

"They are not Sherlock Holmes."

Mr. Lomax chuckled. "Well, I'm warning you. Make sure you'll still be employed after you tell.

His eyes turned introspective. "The Holmes brothers? Untidy. Mr. Mycroft Holmes knew every item in our catalogue. It was a printed book in those days. We sent copies to our new subscribers, with updated lists of new acquisitions. He knew every item; but he could not remember the due dates of the items he borrowed. We would vex him to return them and he would vex us to renew them. It came to the point where we sent a van to pick up the books every quarter, with two of the staff to sort out our books from his and those of other libraries."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

"He also had a poor memory; but what concerned us more were the states in which the items came back. Chemistry treatises burned cover and page by acids. Rare books, music scores and ancient parchments scribbled over with notes, interlinings, comments - and in ink! He thought that since he paid to use our books, they were in effect his books. It got to the point that we denied his borrowing privileges for a year. He had to read our books in the Reading Room, under the eye of the staff, or he would not read them at all. And he must take down his notes with pencil on separate sheets of paper."

"Did he comply?"

"We thought he did, until we found a caricature of the reference room librarian wearing a tutu and a garland of roses. It was drawn on the flyleaf of _The Odes of Horace_.

He paused and then added, "In ink."

"Ouch!"

"Precisely. The reference room librarian, Mr. Quinn, did not appreciate the joke."

We exchanged grins.

"What about Dr. Watson?" I asked. 

"He was a sterling patron. Paid his dues on first notice. Never tardy returning what he borrowed. And the only time I recall a book in his care came back damaged was when Mr. Holmes missed his target on the wall and hit _The Deerslayer_ out of the Doctor's hands."

"Did he hit ... ?"

"Dr. Watson's arm was grazed, but Natty Bumpo obtained a mortal wound in the back cover."

"Were the Cooper books Dr. Watson's favourites?"

Lomax looked doubtful. "I really should not disclose ... If you read his stories, you'll know Dr. Watson's tastes in literature."

"Adventure tales ... ."

"Very much so. Clark Russell's sea stories were as much in his library as in ours."

"Medical journals?"

"Correct. And of course the works of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, another of our library's subscribers."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes' tastes?"

"Not for Doyle's works, I'm afraid. 'Real life has more excitement, romance and adventure on offer than sensational penny-press fiction, especially fiction married to spiritualist claptrap.' I can still hear Mr. Holmes say it, right to Sir Arthur's face. Sir Arthur took it well though, but then he was himself a sportsman and a traveler as much as a reader and writer."

"He helped Dr. Watson sell his adventures about Holmes to _The Strand Magazine_."

"And he helped write them. They were collaborators, though both deny it to this day. Many times I have seen them together working on a yarn, and many books I found for them."

"Mr. Holmes preferred chemistry, music and philosophy from us. Crime was available from Scotland Yard, and I'm told that he had an extensive library of police literature of his own, as well as every London paper and the New York, Chicago and San Francisco papers."

I must have raised my eyebrows, because Mr. Lomax gave me an emphatic nod. "Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, would send bales of newsprint to us after Spring cleaning her box room and attic. 'You keep so many odd, old books,' she said, 'And he won't let me throw them into the bins. If you throw them into the bins, then he can't blame me'."

"Doctor Watson mentioned your help in one of his stories, _"The Illustrious Client."_ Do you remember it?"

"Yes. We're rather proud we helped in a small way to foil a dastardly deceiver. I was personally quite chuffed to see my name in print."

Mr. Lomax shivered, then he straightened his tie and stiffened his upper lip. "Pity what happened to Baron Gruner. He was a thorough villain, but we would not have minded an autographed copy of his book in our rarities collection."


	10. Dr Thorneycroft Huxtable

**Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable**

_from "The Adventure of the Priory School" __The Return of Sherlock Holmes_

_Italicized portions are the lyrics of "The Street Where You Live" from "My Fair Lady" (Alan Jay Lerner - 1956), altered by this author to fit this vignette._  


**  
**

**_I have often walked through Toronto's core;  
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before.  
All at once am I  
Sev'ral stories high,  
Knowing I'm in the Room where Holmes lives._**

Indeed he was. Five stories high to be exact._[Dictionary editors: isn't it supposed to be 'storeys'?_

******_What a thrill stirs me from my toes to crown!  
I can feel my ganglions vibrating up and down.  
Does enchantment pour out of ev'ry door?  
No, it's just from the Room where Holmes lives._ **

**__**** And oh, the towering feeling  
Just to know somehow Holmes is****_ near!  
The overpowering feeing  
That any second he may suddenly appear!_ **

Was this the man Doctor Watson described as 'so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity'? He was indeed large and globular - and he certainly appeared to be floating in the air. Yet balloons cannot sing. They can squeal, whoosh and make impolite sounds when the air is released. But not sing.

Amazing the effect the ACD Room has on some people.

I held out my hand. "Doctor Thorneycroft Huxtable, I presume. Of The Priory School?"

The stout man leaped from the fireplace mantel to the floor.

"A thousand pardons! I fear my exhilaration has overborne my gravitas." He pulled his handkerchief from his vest pocket, mopped his brow, bowed and engulfed my hand in his broad and sweaty palms. "I am indeed Doctor Huxtable, and you must be the sub-librarian."

"Clerical assistant," I replied. "'You delve. We shelve.' A pleasure, Doctor Huxtable."

He released my hand and beamed around the Room. "I have heard much about this shrine to the remarkable Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his illustrious friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Actually seeing it makes my heart effervesce."

I smiled broadly, as much in appreciation as in amusement, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my skirt. "We're always glad to meet an enthusiast. Please let me take you about."

We strolled around the room, while I pointed out some of our treasures. Dr. Huxtable was delighted to see a Sherlock Holmes story in Latin ("Ritualia Musgraviensia", translated by Paul Church and Dale K. Fewell) though he tutted over its near pristine condition.

"Classical studies have been shockingly neglected," he sighed. "I wish the corners of these pages were dog-eared."

"There are quite a number of 'dog ears' within the canon," I joked.

"Indeed there are! The famous Baskerville hound. Toby. Professor Presbury's Roy – ."

"The Dog Who Did Nothing in the Night-time -- ."

"Indeed, that was a curious incident. Another involved the Shoscombe spaniel who discovered the impostor in the carriage and not his mistress."

"She was not even a woman."

"Quite so. Then there was Lady Brackenstall's little dog that was killed by her drunken husband."

"Mrs. Hudson's little terrier, that died from swallowing the pill Holmes gave him."

"Watson's bull pup."

"Some people say that was just a slang expression for having a foul temper."

"A pup can hardly be a fowl." Doctor Huxtable's eyes twinkled. "And I doubt very much that Doctor Watson had a bestial temper."

"True," I agreed heartily. "Any author who would take such abuse about his stories --."

"Treatises, my dear sub-librarian! Essae Practicae upon the detection of crime."

"So Mr. Holmes wished they were, yet he disparaged them as mere pot boilers."

The rotund professor smiled and wagged a finger. "Mr. Holmes was not a school teacher. He did not appreciate, as Doctor Watson did and I do, that hard lessons, like bitter pills, are more readily ingested in a coating of syrup."

"Or, to quote Miss Poppins, 'A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.'"

Dr. Huxtable bobbed and beamed even more brightly. "Just so. Just so. But Mr. Holmes was a Spartan in his habits, and Spartans do not understand or sympathize with the dislikes of weaker mortals."

"Mr. Holmes did take a large fee from the Duke of Holdernesse for finding his son, Lord Saltire. Six thousand pounds was a lot for a man of Spartan habits."

"Indeed. Indeed. Yet Mr. Holmes earned every penny."

Dr. Huxtable shook his head and heaved a sigh, which did sound just like air escaping from a balloon. "The best of men will stoop to folly; but I shall tell you in confidence that I was disappointed in the Duke. To have allowed his illegitimate son ... well, we must neither question nor criticize the ways of our betters."

I confess I was disappointed in Dr. Huxtable. The best of men, I suppose, can still be a snob. To have the heir of an illustrious politician in his school was a great advertisement, but that the man still called the Duke his 'better', after what happened to his young student! There are times when I am prouder of the American portion of the Canadian character than the British slice. A North American would not brush off a homicide or the parent's neglect of his child, even if the parent was an important man and the kidnapper was his elder son. At least I hope we wouldn't.

The schoolmaster eased his way around the central table: browsing the bookshelves, exclaiming over a favourite, tutting over a tome he had disapproved, thoroughly enjoying his perusal of our collection.

"How is Lord Saltire," I asked.

Doctor Huxtable's eyes did not leave the shelves. "Very well. Very well, now that his mother, the Duchess, has returned from France."

"And Mr. James Wilder?" I pressed.

Doctor Huxtable looked ill at ease. "There was some talk – the chatter that goes on in country districts should not be trusted – that, instead of emigrating to Australia, he has organized a band of rogues in America, and that they are going about committing felonies and calling themselves 'The Wilder Bunch'. "

I said nothing, but thought of those horseshoes mentioned in Dr. Watson's account of the adventure of the Priory School that were shaped to resemble the cloven hooves of a cow. Mr. James Wilder had more in common with the marauding barons of Holdernesse than merely his ducal father's blue blood.

"I shudder to think what he would have done to young Lord Saltire. And the scandal that would have ensued. It would have ruined my school. Ruined my blameless reputation. I cannot thank Mr. Holmes enough for finding and rescuing Saltire and restoring the good name of The Priory School. "

**  
****_"People stop and stare. They don't bother me,  
For there's nowhere else on earth that I would rather be.  
Let the time go by; I won't care if I  
Can be here in the Room where Holmes lives."_**


	11. Sir Henry Baskerville

**Sir Henry Baskerville**

"By thunder, you had a mystery conference here and you didn't send me an invitation?" 

Sir Henry Baskerville never did spit the tang of the North American West out of his speech. I don't think he ever wanted to. It certainly came through loud and clear ahead of him when he stomped into the Room, waving a brochure at me.

I straightened up from sorting out the piles of books into Dewey order.

"It was a mystery **writers'** convention. Not **characters**. They just gave a public reading of their works here. Had we known you'd be in town, we would have been thrilled to have them meet you." I waved my hand to my work. "Had **I** known you were in town, I would've asked you to help. You know what writers are like when they're inside a library."

That backed him off.

"Now whoa, miss! I came for an apology, not a job."

"Well, you're getting the job if I don't get the apology. I'm not a mystery writer -- ."

"That's for darn sure," Baskerville muttered.

" -- and I'm not on the committee of the Library or of the Crime Writers of Canada. My manager did not believe me when I said the voice of a fictional policeman caused the damage to the Room. He's certainly not going to believe I saw Sir Henry Baskerville in the ... the ..."

"Flesh?"

"Whatever you fictional characters put on to manifest yourselves."

He took a step toward me and spread his arms. "I am wearing clothes." 

And wearing them very well, I thought. The man certainly looks manly in his Levis. Watson did not mention the pull of his muscles on his T-shirt, but then Sir Henry was not wearing a T-shirt when Watson wrote of him in Chapter 4 of _The Hound of the Baskervilles._

_Our clients were punctual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman._

He had not left his pugnacious face at home. "I'm not conspicuous, am I? Fashions are still more casual in your century than in mine?"  
"No," I replied. "You fit in very well."

His expression eased into a smile - which also fit very well. "I'm glad to hear it. I don't like looking out of place."

"So I read. You went shopping the day you landed in England."

"Well ... I felt like an uncouth colonial the moment I got on the ship. I mean, what was I? Before the title, I was plain Hank Baskerville with a small farmstead in Assiniboine country. Next thing, I'm the rich English millionaire, Sir Henry Baskerville, sitting at the First Class table trying to mind my manners, with women fawning over me and sharps wanting me to invest my fortune with them - all of them talking in accents I hadn't heard before."

"But you were born in England," I began, puzzled.

"Devonshire. Every region had its own accent in my day. You could tell a Cornishman from a Yorkshireman from an Essex man. Now radio, television, the Beatles and _Coronation Street_ have made everyone back home sound like a cross between professors and costermen. And I left when I was fifteen, remember. I had spent more than half my life in North America before I became Sir Henry."

"So what is your nationality?"

He gave a dry laugh. "Englishman. American. Canadian. They all claim me, just because I'm rich and famous. When I was poor and unknown, no one cared. Certainly not my family. Dr. Watson put it into my mouth that after Dad's death I 'went to a friend in America'. My grandfather didn't want me. Uncles Charles and Rodger, off in other parts of the world, didn't send for me. My Uncle Hugo, who was heir before Uncle Charles, didn't want me. My mother wasn't good enough to marry a Baskerville, so I wasn't good enough to be one. I was born in Devonshire, so according to the register, I'm English; but my heart straddles the western plains and prairies. I'd be dead without my heart, so I'm Americanadian."

"Was there a 'friend in America'?" I asked softly.

"If you call the Dr. Barnardo's Homes 'friends'. Well, maybe they were. I was fifteen years old and living hand to mouth. They got me off the street and sent me where a strong, smart lad might have a chance to survive. Yeah, I reckon they were my friends. I was also adventurous, so I didn't do too badly. Went from job to job, then settled down, and the moment I settled, the lawyers came with the news I was Sir Henry. Lord High Muck-a-Muck at last."

Baskerville looked around the room. "Uncle Charles' money made it worth while, God bless him. He did a lot of good."

"Did you marry Beryl Stapleton?"

He shook his head slowly. "No. No. Someday I'll tell the whole story. Doctor Watson's a darn good friend to me and to Holmes. He covered up a lot, and he euphemized a lot. Or maybe I should let the past die the way he wrote it. There are some things that can't be said."

Gazing through the window, he said very softly, "Some things I don't want to remember."

* * *

**Canadian Mystery Writers who have written Sherlock Holmes Stories:**  
[if you know of others, tell me. I'll add them 

_Sydney Hosier wrote Murder, Mrs. Hudson and other books in the Mrs. Hudson series  
_

_Howard Engel, the author of the Benny Cooperman mysteries set in St. Catharines [Grantham wrote Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell.  
_

_Stephen Leacock wrote "Maddened by Mystery: or, The Defective Detective" a short story in Nonsense Novels in 1920._

_Curious incidents : being a collection of the further adventures of Sherlock Holmes / edited by J. R. Campbell & Charles V. Prepolec -- 2002  
And Curious incidents II  
(More authors than just Canadians, as one sharp reviewer noted, but edited and published by Canadians. Support your Authors & Publishers. They could use the cash.)  
_

_ Ronald C. Weyman wrote Sherlock Holmes and the Mark of the Beast, Sherlock Holmes: Travels in the Canadian West, and Sherlock Holmes: the Ultimate Disguise_

_L. B. Greenwood wrote Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Raleigh Legacy_

_Jay Shakley wrote The Villars-Manningham Papers and other Stories of Sherlock Holmes - 1978  
_


	12. Lomax, The Sub Librarian

**The Curious Incident of the Sub-Librarian in the Daytime**

I met him in the atrium - the section of the first floor that is open to the other four floors of the library - looking around with a keen interest. 

"Sizing up the place," I thought, sizing him up. Middle height. Glasses. Brown hair combed back from a high forehead. Pale face. Firm, thin lips. Looked very efficient.

"Oh dear. One of those serious librarians." I recalled the jokes passing among the staff when I asked, "What is a 'sub-librarian'. None of us knew, and the old Oxford Dictionary held no clue, let alone a definition. 'Librarianess': yes. A female librarian. 'Sub-librarian' or 'Librarian, Sub': no.

A substitute librarian? Someone who works under a librarian, like me? A subversive librarian?

"A submarine librarian," one of my colleagues had quipped. "He can fathom anything."

"I don't think so," I replied. "This man works in the London Library. And no, not in London, Ontario. The Big London. I've searched the Internet. I've asked around. They still exist in Britain and Ireland, but I can't tell if they have Library Science degrees or if they have other degrees and work in libraries as specialists."

My colleague shrugged. "Then I'm out of my depth. Good luck with the interview."

So here I was, about to meet my opposite number - or my boss's opposite number - from beyond The Magic Door.

Taking a deep breath, hoping I would not embarrass myself and thus embarrass the Library, I strode toward the man and introduced myself.

"How do you do?" he replied as we shook hands. "I'm am indeed Arthur Lomax."

He looked up and around the library's interior once more, pursing his lips. "Your architect wasted space."

"It has won awards and most people like it. It's bright -- ."

"And you must walk miles to fetch a book."

"Yards."

"Several hundred yards, I daresay. But you are right. It is bright, and with the waterfall, welcoming. I look forward to seeing it."

So we walked up to and around the second floor, up and around the third, took the public elevator to the fourth floor so Mr. Lomax could see the library through the Plexiglas wall, then through the stacks up to the fifth floor and the Arthur Conan Doyle Room. 

"I admit I am impressed by your library's collections as well as by its size - though I think so much interior space could have been used instead of wasted," he said as he sat down. "We are always needing space, so I feel strongly on the matter."

"The London Library is on St. James's Square, is it not?"

"That's correct. In the heart of Club Land, since 1845. Easy for scholars like Mr. Holmes to access our holdings, though Mr. Holmes usually sent round a boy from the Diogenes to retrieve the items he wanted.

"Mr. Mycroft Holmes."

"That is so. A omnivorous scholar, but not a walker. A man with a phenomenal memory for everything but the dates of return."

"How does the London Library differ from a public library?" 

"Your library is funded by tax revenues. The London Library is funded directly by its subscribers. They pay an annual fee to have access to all our resources. We are the world's largest subscription library, with over a million books and periodical issues."

"I've heard of Mudie's library, from reading Jane Austen's novels. Is your library the same?"

"The same and not the same. Mudie's, and W. H. Smith before it became a retail bookstore chain, lent new works from various outlets around the country. When a title went out of fashion, it was warehoused and later discarded. Thomas Carlyle founded our library on somewhat the same principle as your own - that people who do not attend university should have access to the wealth of a university's library. The second difference between your library and mine is that the London Library's collection circulates and yours does not."

"Were both the Misters Holmes subscribers?"

"Indeed they were, and Doctor Watson, as you know. Mr. Mycroft Holmes, Mr. Sherlock Holmes's elder brother, was a great borrower; though we saw little of him. He would send his requests by telegram, and we would send him the books by special messenger." He smiled. "Like all government men, Mr Holmes always wanted them right away, if not sooner. Mr. Sherlock Holmes was just the same."

I laughed. "We have such patrons too, though not few of them work for the government. What were they like as a patrons?"

Mr Lomax leaned back in his chair. "You know I shouldn't be telling tales."

"You can't be fired," I countered. "You have too much seniority, and I'm sure you know the skeletons hiding in every librarian's closet."

"Almost every skeleton. I suppose it doesn't matter to me, but your patrons are going to wonder if you keep silent about them."

"They are not Sherlock Holmes."

Mr. Lomax chuckled. "Well, I'm warning you. Make sure you'll still be employed after you tell.

His eyes turned introspective. "The Holmes brothers? Untidy. Mr. Mycroft Holmes knew every item in our catalogue. It was a printed book in those days. We sent copies to our new subscribers, with updated lists of new acquisitions. He knew every item; but he could not remember the due dates of the items he borrowed. We would vex him to return them and he would vex us to renew them. It came to the point where we sent a van to pick up the books every quarter, with two of the staff to sort out our books from his and those of other libraries."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes?"

"He also had a poor memory; but what concerned us more were the states in which the items came back. Chemistry treatises burned cover and page by acids. Rare books, music scores and ancient parchments scribbled over with notes, interlinings, comments - and in ink! He thought that since he paid to use our books, they were in effect his books. It got to the point that we denied his borrowing privileges for a year. He had to read our books in the Reading Room, under the eye of the staff, or he would not read them at all. And he must take down his notes with pencil on separate sheets of paper."

"Did he comply?"

"We thought he did, until we found a caricature of the reference room librarian wearing a tutu and a garland of roses. It was drawn on the flyleaf of _The Odes of Horace_.

He paused and then added, "In ink."

"Ouch!"

"Precisely. The reference room librarian, Mr. Quinn, did not appreciate the joke."

We exchanged grins.

"What about Dr. Watson?" I asked. 

"He was a sterling patron. Paid his dues on first notice. Never tardy returning what he borrowed. And the only time I recall a book in his care came back damaged was when Mr. Holmes missed his target on the wall and hit _The Deerslayer_ out of the Doctor's hands."

"Did he hit ... ?"

"Dr. Watson's arm was grazed, but Natty Bumpo obtained a mortal wound in the back cover."

"Were the Cooper books Dr. Watson's favourites?"

Lomax looked doubtful. "I really should not disclose ... If you read his stories, you'll know Dr. Watson's tastes in literature."

"Adventure tales ... ."

"Very much so. Clark Russell's sea stories were as much in his library as in ours."

"Medical journals?"

"Correct. And of course the works of his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, another of our library's subscribers."

"And Mr. Sherlock Holmes' tastes?"

"Not for Doyle's works, I'm afraid. 'Real life has more excitement, romance and adventure on offer than sensational penny-press fiction, especially fiction married to spiritualist claptrap.' I can still hear Mr. Holmes say it, right to Sir Arthur's face. Sir Arthur took it well though, but then he was himself a sportsman and a traveler as much as a reader and writer."

"He helped Dr. Watson sell his adventures about Holmes to _The Strand Magazine_."

"And he helped write them. They were collaborators, though both deny it to this day. Many times I have seen them together working on a yarn, and many books I found for them."

"Mr. Holmes preferred chemistry, music and philosophy from us. Crime was available from Scotland Yard, and I'm told that he had an extensive library of police literature of his own, as well as every London paper and the New York, Chicago and San Francisco papers."

I must have raised my eyebrows, because Mr. Lomax gave me an emphatic nod. "Mrs. Hudson, his landlady, would send bales of newsprint to us after Spring cleaning her box room and attic. 'You keep so many odd, old books,' she said, 'And he won't let me throw them into the bins. If you throw them into the bins, then he can't blame me'."

"Doctor Watson mentioned your help in one of his stories, _"The Illustrious Client."_ Do you remember it?"

"Yes. We're rather proud we helped in a small way to foil a dastardly deceiver. I was personally quite chuffed to see my name in print."

Mr. Lomax shivered, then he straightened his tie and stiffened his upper lip. "Pity what happened to Baron Gruner. He was a thorough villain, but we would not have minded an autographed copy of his book in our rarities collection."


	13. The Love of Violets

**The Loves of Violets**

_Four women, seated around the table. The one at the head: young, rich, and beautiful - her tresses coiled into a crown of midnight upon her head. At her right, the eldest of the four: her abundant auburn hair grey-streaked, laughter lines at the corners of her shrewd eyes, her cheeks freckled like a plover's eggs. Opposite her, a tall, blonde young matron, straight-backed and firm-chinned. At the foot, the youngest: pretty, soft and anxious, wringing a tissue between her hands._

"What should I do?" she beseeched. "I don't want to be untrue to Arthur."

The beautiful one heaved an impatient sigh. "Arthur has been dead for years. Forget him."

The young one gasped; then burst into tears. The blonde patted her hand. "She did not mean to be so curt, dear. It's just her way."

"But she is right," the wise-eyed one said. "Mr. Cadogan-West won't hold you beyond the grave. If you love John, Miss Westbury, marry him."

Miss Westbury's head shot up. "You don't understand? You've never married!"

"But I have been in love."

"With whom?" two of the three women started in their chairs. The beautiful one examined her cuticles.

"With a man I wanted to marry, and would have married, if he had ever wanted to marry."

"Marry you?"

"Marry any woman."

Miss Westbury's eyes widened. "Mr. Holmes?"

The other looked enigmatic.

The blonde woman snorted. "I don't believe you, Miss Hunter."

"Believe what you please, Mrs. Morton."

"Was he ... interested?" Miss Westbury ventured, her tissue abandoned in her lap.

Miss Hunter looked coy. "Doctor Watson thought so."

"Doctor Watson _wished_ it so," Mrs. Morton said decidedly. "_He_ was the one in love with you, wasn't he?"

Miss Hunter smiled another enigmatic smile, and scrutinized her gloves. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. But my past is not relative to Miss Westbury's future."

"Whose past is?" posed the imperious looking woman.

"Certainly not yours, milady," riposted Mrs. Morton. "None of us would have married a libertine and murderer."

"You did."

"I did not! I was gagged; and if I wasn't, I never would have said, 'I do'. Mr. Holmes stopped that, just like he stopped your marriage to Baron Gruner, and you should be grateful he did, Violet DeMerville."

The imperious woman now smiled. "I am - and I am not."

"What!" The other three women started from their chairs.Violet De Merville looked around the table. "I intend to marry Baron Gruner."

Her three companions gasped and goggle-eyed her.

"Your seducer?" Violet Westbury squeaked out.

"Almost seducer," said Miss DeMerville, with an ice-creamy smile.

"'Almost' thanks to Mr. Holmes," Violet Hunter retorted.

"He murdered his wife!" exclaimed Miss Westbury. "And he had a 'lust diary' as thick as the Bible!"

"And his face!" Violet Morton squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. "It's … It's… ."

Violet DeMerville gave her a wilting glance. "More hideous than your husband's?"

Mrs. Morton's eyes opened wide and angry. "Cyril is not hideous."

"Merely homely," Miss DeMerville sneered.

"And honest," Violet Westbury bit her lower lip and looked down at her hands. "Like Arthur was."

Violet Hunter put her arm around her shoulders. "Brace up, dear. Your Arthur would not want you to grieve."

"I know. He was so fearless." She gave Miss Hunter a watery smile. "Like you are."

"Nonsense!" Miss Hunter smiled back. "I never could resist opening locked doors. But Jethro Rutcastle frightened me." She turned her full headmistress glare at Violet DeMerville. "And Baron Gruner should frighten you."

"Why marry him?" Violet Morton demanded. "You're King Edward's pet."

"And he's horribly mutilated," added Violet Westbury.

Violet de Merville smiled a fraction colder. "And horribly rich. That is why I will marry him."

Miss Hunter regarded her steadily, then pushed up her glasses and tucked a wayward auburn lock behind her ear. "I wouldn't do it."

"Why not? I'll be a rich baroness and do what I please. He's rich enough to pay for all I want; lustful enough to pleasure me when I want; and ugly enough that no one else will want him for a lover." Miss de Merville shrugged and laughed. "The perfect man."

She turned to Mrs. Morton. "You have your Cyril. Miss Hunter has her school. Miss Westbury has her youth. She'll marry her swain or find another good man or an charitable purpose for living. Why shouldn't I live my life as I choose?"

"By marrying a wife murderer?"

"That was not proven." Miss DeMerville retorted, raising her chin. But the fire in her eyes flickered.

"He attempted to murder Mr. Holmes," Miss Hunter pressed. "He disfigured that unfortunate Winter woman. Why on the green earth marry such a man?"

The flame rekindled. "He's rich, and titled – and he can't get in my way. I can go where I want. Do what I want. Throw parties. Champion causes. Fly an aeroplane. Cruise the world."

"And he'll let you?" Miss Hunter scoffed.

"He can't stop me. He can't show his face in public."

"He could wear a mask." Miss Westbury argued. She shuddered. "He could lock you up, or he could lock up his money."

"He'll give me his money for what I'll give him."

"Which is?"

"My company – on my terms. He needs what I can give. I need what he has. What woman wants him now?"

"Not me, for all his money, if she didn't love him and he wasn't a worthy man," said Violet Westbury. "My Arthur had very little, but he loved me and I loved him."

"And my husband and I are very happy with what we have, even if it is a simple home," agreed Mrs. Cyril Morton.

"Royalty makes such arrangements," Miss DeMerville said haughtily.

"And pay heavily doing it," Violet Hunter sniffed.

"We would have been happier than most princes." Miss Westbury choked back a sob.

Miss De Merville looked down her nose at her. "I was meant to live a life beyond your comprehension."

Violet Morton sighed. "It's your lookout, then. Do you want orchids or lilies on your grave?"

Miss De Merville smiled. "Violets, of course."


	14. Kindred Spirits

**Kindred Spirits**

_Characters and original stories from "The Creeping Man" and "The Veiled Lodger" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. _

_Setting: The exhibition "Meet Me at the Circus", in the TD Gallery on the first floor of the Library, September 2008._

"What a striking woman." He sidled toward her as well as he could, trying to ogle her while pretending to look at the picture she stood before -- a commonplace photograph of a moustached man in a gaudy frogged coat snapping a whip at a snarling lion.

He cursed the thick veil covering her face from hairline to just above her full, luscious lips, surprised by his urge to see her expression. Her posture told him that she was careworn and sad. Or was she angry? From a drooping shoulder, her right arm extended stiffly downward to a clenched fist.

She turned, and he saw her lips tremble.

Years under the Indian sun had not burned out his English reserve. Beggar though he now was, he still had the training of a gentleman, and a gentleman does not intrude upon a lady's privacy.

She touched the wall with a groping gesture. She was evidently about to faint.

He hesitated, his sight dropping to his frayed trousers. The woman was 'respectably' dressed, but she was also in distress.

"I could not help noticing … I mean, I don't mean to intrude, but … Please. You appear indisposed. Let me be of assistance to you."

He sensed her tense and scrutinize him through her veil. Flushing, he was about to draw back; but she grasped his arm.

"Thank-you. I do need to sit … to get away from …" She faltered, then said urgently, "Please help me outside. I must breathe."

She leaned on his arm, and bent backed though he was, somehow he did get her through the doorways and to a bench outside the library. She thanked him, and then caught his gnarled hand.

"Please sit beside me, sir. I owe you an explanation."

"You owe me nothing, Ma'am," he replied gallantly. "But I'll stay until you feel fit enough." A cad could take advantage of an ill and lovely woman all alone, he assured himself.

"You are very kind … but then, I saw that you would be kind - and understanding."

The man flushed. "Because I'm a cripple?"

"Because you offered your help, not assumed I would want it." The gentle smile beneath the veil conveyed her understanding and sympathy. "You have a hero's pride, so you would understand my own pride."

"'Back straight. Eyes front.'" The man managed a wry smile. "Hardly 'back straight' in my case."

"Hardly 'eyes front' in my own," the woman replied, smiling and touching the hem of her veil.

"They could not be more beautiful than your smile," the man blurted out.

"You are a flatterer, Mr. …"

"Henry Wood. I was a corporal – in the Royal Munsters." He frowned hard. "Too long ago."

The woman took and pressed his gnarled hand between hers. "Eugenia Ronder. I'm honoured, Corporal."

Wood shook his head. "These aren't battle scars, ma'am. I was captured, beaten, broken and enslaved – because a false comrade wanted my girl."

Suddenly, his reserve broke under the warm pressure of her hands. He told her all, from falling in love with the daughter of the colour sergeant through falling into the trap set by his rival, his enslavement, his escape and his journey back to England, to his final confrontation with the woman he had loved and the man who had betrayed him.

Several times Mrs. Ronder swallowed hard, as though blinking back tears, all the while nodding encouragement.

"So Colonel Barclay died of his own guilty conscience?"

"Or from fright. I must have been a fearsome sight. He thought I was safely dead, until Nancy threw her encounter with me in his face. Not that I hadn't plotted his death from the start of it all; but I thought Nancy was happy with him, and I wanted to leave it so. When I heard her cry that he had stolen her life, I came through that window with my cudgel up and waving. But I never touched him. It was fate that made him fall and hit his head on the fireplace mantel. Still, I feel his blood on my hands."

"Don't reproach yourself. Your blood was on his."

Mrs. Ronder turned half away and bowed her head. She took a deep breath. "I murdered my husband."

There was a palpable pause, then a touch of strong, though gnarled fingers on her elbow. "He deserved it," Wood said softly.

"You knew him?" She spun to him so quickly her veil twirled up revealing two beautiful brown eyes in a mutilated face. She pulled it back quickly, but not quickly enough. He saw her cheeks were deeply scarred and he shuddered.

"I should have warned you," she said bitterly. "Even Sherlock Holmes could not stand the sight of my face."

"Sherlock Holmes?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. The Great Detective. You'd think he had seen ghastlier sights, investigating murders."

Wood's brow furrowed. "He investigated me," he admitted. "I told him my story, just as I told you, and he let me alone." He paused. "He let you alone too, I presume, after you told yours?"

She nodded. He patted her hand. "I don't condemn you. We've both been reprieved by a man who has seen the worst that men do, and I've no right. I don't know your husband, but he must have caused what happened to your face."

"You don't know how deeply he scarred me! He was a sadist. He beat me like he beat and starved our beasts. The lion scarred only my body. My husband scarred my soul."

"The lion?" Wood said, astonished at her vehemence that it took him a moment to connect her statement to the picture she had touched. "The picture … Was that your husband?"

She shook her head. "No. There you could tell man from beast. In my case, the lion was the sentient creature. It mauled me because it smelled blood and sensed danger. It was also hungry for its evening meal. Leonardo and I should have taken that into our calculations."

"Leonardo?"

"My lover, the strongman. My husband was too much a coward to confront him. Leonardo needed the money and we needed his act. We had no one else but Jimmy Griggs, the clown; though my husband had salted enough money away to hire the best. He knew we loved, so beat and humiliated me where Leonardo could overhear both the blows and curses.

"Since we could not escape him, we killed him. Leonardo hammered nails into a club, in the shape of a lion's splayed paw. One night – we were in Abbas Parva – he hid behind a van and struck my husband from behind. I opened the lion's cage, to make it appear the lion had killed my husband and escaped during feeding time. The lion … had it's own ideas." She suddenly crumpled, shielding her face with her hands.

"That horrible, horrible night!"

Wood gingerly patted her shoulder, his own thoughts slipped to his own unforgettable horrors. "I know," he said bitterly. "I know you can't forget."

Mrs. Ronder raised her head, and almost raised her veil to clearly see his expression. "You do know," she said, awed and tearful. "I can tell from your voice that you know."

Wood grimaced and nodded, shamefaced. "You wouldn't think it from this carcase, but I was a strong, handsome soldier once. The Ghazis tortured me until I was a twisted stick. I've known despair and I've tasted the spittle of hate. None are good for the soul. My sleep is haunted by nightmares and my waking by horrible memories."

He looked at her with a rueful grin. "Love exacted a heavy price from us both."

Mrs. Ronder laid her slim white hand on his dried sinewy arm. "Did your Nancy love him?"

He shook his head. "She thought I was dead. Barclay was a good choice for her, as far as fortune went. She admitted he had made her a good husband, but she loved me.

She gave a start of surprise. "You have seen her since … since those days?"

He nodded. "I recognized her in the street and blurted out her name. It must have been my voice that told her who I was. She asked what had happened to me. I told her."

He raked his hands through his sparse hair. "Of course it upset her; but I had not reckoned on how much. Everyone said the Barclays were a devoted couple. I thought she had learned to love him.

"I followed her to her house, worried for what I had done to her state of mind. I hovered outside the French window. Barclay came in. The words she said to him! "Give me back my life!" she demanded over and over. "I don't want to breathe the same air as you." I knew then that she had always been true to me.

"My rage was so red then at the trick Barclay had played on us both. I came in on them, my stick raised high. I would have struck him down and killed him then and there; but his own conscience did the job for me."

Mrs. Ronder nodded. "Did you marry your old love?" she asked softly.

Henry Wood snorted. "The colonel's lady marry a deformed beggar? Only in fairy tales!"

Mrs. Ronder swallowed and looked away. "I did not mean to offend. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm glad we didn't. I couldn't have stood her pity, after having had her love." Wood sighed. "I wished we could have; but she had her position and Barclay's money. What could I give her? And our story would all come out then. What good would scandal have done."

He touched her veil. "What about you? Did you marry your Samson?

She shook her head and sighed. "My 'Samson' fled from what the lion did to me. I was not blamed for my husband's death, and I had enough money to pay the doctors and hide. A living death."

"You should not say that," Wood reproved her.

"Why not? My seclusion has been from shame. You volunteered to get help because your camp was under siege. Your scars are honourable."

"Do you think I didn't want death when I got them? Only anger kept me alive. But when I was freed, I had my living to get, and no energy to spare for hate. Not even when I came to Aldershot, until I heard Nancy screaming at Barclay that he had ruined her life."

He touched her veil, then drew it up. She cried out and grasped his wrist, but he gently pried her fingers away and looked at her. Her eyes were brown and beautiful.

"Then don't hide." She tried to look away. He tilted up her chin. "Face the world from behind a veil, but face it with me. We've been alone too long, and we'll been lonely apart. We belong together."


	15. The Man with the Twisted Lip

Canon Fodder

Neville (the Man with the Twisted Lip)

Every library has 'permanent patrons', the people who come almost every day. Some are 'lifelong learners'. Some come to read the newspapers. Some come to send electronic mail or play electronic games. Some come to stave off loneliness.

Some come to find shelter. Outside, they beg. Inside, they sleep. But they cannot sleep inside the Arthur Conan Doyle Room. Though quiet and dark, the Room is open only two hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

So the beggar snoring in the padded chair surprised me. Steve Dixie of '3 Gables' fame could not have looked blacker or smelled worse. His clothes were faded, frayed, tattered and holed. And the puffy appearance of his upper lip, drawn up to expose his yellowed teeth in a snarl, was certainly horrific.

He snorted himself awake and blinked at me.

"Scared ya, dinn't I?" He waved a slim, grimy hand toward the glass door, and said, in a cultured voice, "Most of the others look pristine compared to me."

He held out his dirty hand, looked at it, and then let it fall. "Please excuse my appearance, if you can. Neville St. Clair at your service, madame."

"Mr. St. Clair; … why are you …?" I felt embarrassed. "I mean … ."

"Why have I returned to beggary?" He examined his black rimmed fingernails. "I suppose I missed the life. I was not cut out for the banal routine of a white collar job, scribbling down political lies and anxious to meet deadlines. Before I was a reporter on a metropolitan newspaper, I was an actor. I returned to the profession." He smiled. "Superman was within Clark Kent. Hugh Boone's inside me."

"A beggar." I couldn't help sounding disgusted.

"A beggar who can quote anything from Homer to 'Beavis and Butthead'", St. Clair countered, still smiling. I'm a genius and a public servant. I give the citizens entertainment and the opportunity to demonstrate their benevolence."

"You promised Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Bradstreet there would be no more of Hugh Boone."

"Nor is there – in London. But in Berlin, or Washington, or here…." He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his greasy hair. "I'm a Citizen of the World – go where I can, do what I wish."

"What about your family?"

That wiped off his grin. He sat up in his chair and regarded me soberly. "I intended to forswear mendicancy. Unfortunately, Watson could not resist selling my story to the _Strand. _

"My wife might have forgiven me, eventually. But when the world read about us … ." He shrugged. "It was like I soiled our marriage bed with Hugh Boone's dirt."

He shrugged. "As I told Holmes and Bradstreet, newspaper work paid me far less than begging did. A 'regular job' could not keep my family in the comfort to which we had grown accustomed, but I did not want my children to lack that comfort. My savings sank as my debts rose. So I took a 'business trip' and 'died' en route. My 'widow' claimed the insurance, paid off the debts and now lives a quiet life on the interest of my remaining investments. I meet her whenever I am in England; but the children know me only as 'Uncle Neville'."

"I am sorry to hear that," I said.

"Don't be. This is my métier. I enjoy begging because I enjoy acting." He opened his grubby wallet and held up his ACTRA card. "I occasionally clean up and take a role for the CBC. _King of Kensington. Road to Avonlea. DaVinci's Inquest._ _Hockey Night in Canada …._"

"_Hockey Night --."_

"As a defenseman."

"No wonder the Leafs always lose the playoffs."

He smiled. "But I'm in some spectacular fight scenes."


	16. The Norwood Builder

**The Norwood Builder at 789 Yonge Street**

"Drat!"

Again I checked the call number of the book. Again I checked the shelf it had to occupy. The shelves above and below it. The shelves above and below those. All were full of books, two rows deep. There was no more room for Holmes on this range.

As I shook my head and pondered desperately what to do with the new book in my hand and the others on the cart, I heard a man at my back say, with a smirk in his rumbling laugh, "Looks like you could do with more shelves, gel."

Suppressing a sigh, I turned to him. Grey haired, florid faced, truculent expression. "One of _those_ patrons," I thought. "The kind that takes out a bad day by needling others."

I gestured around the room. "Where would they go? There's not an inch of open wall left."

"I could fix that for you," he said, eye-measuring the room. "Odd shaped … Hmm. One narrow window … . You don't get much light in here, eh?"

"We're not supposed to. This is a special collection."

"_This?_" His eyebrows arched and bristled like the backs of two cats. "Tosh, gel! Modern stuff."

"It's still a 'special collection'. Mystery fiction is becoming classic."

The man pulled a book off the shelf, flipped through it and snorted. "Pot boiler drivel. Libraries in my day wouldn't touch em. Shakespeare and Sermons. Textbooks. Histories. Maybe a bit of Scott and Wordsworth for light reading. That's the stuff for libraries." He pointed his finger at a shelf. "What are those?"

"Graphic novels."

"Which are?"

I stammered out some incoherent words about stories told with pictures. He snorted again.

"I never read other than blueprints, contracts and the paper. Never cared to," he said. "But if I did, I wouldn't waste good time on cartoons."

The man fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, then held out a card that had seen use more than once, so dog-eared it was. "Here. This is who I am."

I took it reluctantly and read the faded print.

_**Jonas Oldacre. Builder**__._

_Choice Flats and Residences._

_Big or Small, We Build Them All._

_Clandestine Cupboards our Specialty._

_Lower Norwood. Telegraph address: Oldacre. LowNor_

"_Turn Space Into Place"_

I looked up at him. "Is that near Markham?"

He looked perplexed. "Where's Markham?"

He was not a local contractor, then. Markham was the latest 'growth area' around here. I glanced at the card again. "Telegraph." Not "e-mail". No web address. I took in his high celluloid collar. Definitely not from here.

He sauntered around the Room, his thumbs hooking his belt loops. "I could put a new wall crossways where that table stands," he said, "or lengthwise from this pillar to the outer wall. With shelves on both sides, that should accommodate your needs for another few years."

'Another few years' was right. The way Holmes' fame boomed, those new shelves would be filled in no time. Sir Arthur was in fashion too. Four biographies in the last two years. Where would we find room in the Room?

I handed back his card. "You'd have to -- ."

"Take it up with the powers that be, who will take it up with their higher powers, and so on and so forth," Oldacre finished, brusque.

"We intend to renovate -- ."

"I know. I've seen the plans. Got my bid in. It takes time. It always does." Oldacre swivelled round, eyed the book truck and then eyed me. "Can this place wait that long?"

"It does resemble a sausage," I admitted.

"You need some urgent renovations before then." Oldacre gave the Room another look. "Well, I have done wonders with smaller spaces. The hidden closet I made for Professor Coram, right behind the bookcase. And the secret little room I made in my house. Not much bigger than a walk in closet, yet I was snug enough. If Mr. Busy-Body Holmes had not eye-measured the upper hall and found it six feet shorter than the lower one, I could've got away with my own murder."

"But you didn't," I put in with satisfaction. Mr. Oldacre was becoming an old ache in my head.

"No, but they didn't kill me, did they? They couldn't prove I intended that milksop should hang. A good scare -- that's all it was. Just a good scare on his mum, for jilting me when we were young. Why Holmes and the coppers made so much of a little prank." He shook his head, as if he could not understand why the police were such killjoys.

Then he smiled. "The strong room I built for that old paint peddler – with the gas cocks. 'The Mousetrap'. You wouldn't know that's what it was until …" He chuckled. Then he scowled. "A masterpiece, but the miser never paid me for it."

I gaped at him. "You built that murder room?"

Oldacre grimaced. "I didn't know he'd turn it into one. 'Just a little extra protection', he said when he ordered the gas pipe installed. 'To keep vermin from nibbling my money.'" He gave a dry laugh. "He sure did that."

I confess I was intrigued. "Did you build any more like that?" I asked.

He gave me a shrewd look. "You mean Auschwitz and the others? I wasn't asked." The look added, "That doesn't mean the Nazis didn't read the story."

"I did build a few dillies though" Oldacre added aloud. "That one for Coram. Right behind his bookcase. Holmes had to smoke a full pack of cigarettes to 'smoke out' the entrance. I don't know why Coram wanted it. Not to hide his wife, though he did hide her in it, and he was a cripple. He couldn't get inside it in time. Scary bloke, that Russian.

"The little hidey-hole for Madame Adler's picture. I'm proud of that one. The joins in the moulding were perfect. I'll bet Holmes couldn't have found where it was if she didn't tip her hand. The king's men couldn't. Madame Adler told me that when she paid me. They had been through the house. Turned over everything. Didn't find it."

"Did you do any work for Mr. Holmes?" I asked.

Oldacre snorted. "For him? Hah!" His expression grew thoughtful. "You mean that alcove business, don't you? The one where Holmes snatched the yellow diamond out of Count Silly's hand? I'd love to shake the hand of the man that did that job. Holmes went from his bedroom to that window seat through a passage; but how was that passage built? It had to be along an outer wall, since that's where the window was; but … ." He threw up his hands. "I'll figure it out later."

"Did you build a hiding place for Professor Moriarty?"

"Do you think he'd let me live if I did?" Oldacre sighed heavily. "You are stupid, even for a woman. Do you remember what nearly happened to Victor Hatherley?"

"The hydraulic engineer who lost his thumb?"

"Who was glad he lost only his thumb, not his life." He waggled his thumbs at me."

"It nearly hung you. Your thumbprint, I mean."

The old man glared at me. "Do you want to be a permanent part of the Room?"

I shook my head.

"Then don't tease **The Norwood Builder**."

"The Norwood Builder" = in _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_

Professor Coram = "The Golden Pince-Nez" in _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_

"Madame Adler" = Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Bohemia" in _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes _ ("Madame" here because she was an opera diva.)

"The old paint pedlar" = Josiah Amberley ("The Retired Colourman" in _The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes_)

"Count Silly" = Count Negretto Sylvius ("The Mazarin Stone" in _The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes_)

Professor Moriarty = "The Final Problem" in _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ ; mentioned in "The Empty House" in _The Return of Sherlock Holmes _and _The Valley of Fear_

Victor Hatherley = "The Engineer's Thumb" in _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_


	17. King Wilhelm Reads About Prince William

Every newssheet from _The Globe and Mail_ and the _Prager Zeitung _to _The National Enquirer _covered the long table, or lay strewn over the carpet. Every commemorative edition from _Royalty _and _People_ to _Hello Canada_, open at 'The Kiss'_._ A 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, fortunately still sealed in its box, teetered on top of the pile. What a mess!

I looked up from the smiling pictures of H.R.H. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and his Duchess to the scowling Wilhelm Gottreich etcetera, hereditary King of Bohemia.

"Why him?" Wilhelm stabbed a thick forefinger into William's face. "We're both thirty years old. Both princes. We have the same Christian name. Tell me why _he_ could marry a common woman and I could not?"

"Because times changed, Sir," I replied civilly. I've met three governors-general, five lieutenant-governors [with RCMP bodyguards], two mayors, eight Baker Street urchins and the shade of A. Conan Doyle. I refused to be intimidated by a non-reigning royal, even if he was six-six, wore fur in summer and had 'the chest and limbs of a Hercules'.

The king glowered at me and muttered something unintelligible and unprintable in German or Czech.

"Not that much," he then said. "His mother was the daughter of an earl. His grandfather was a prince of Greece."

"An impoverished prince."

"Did not matter. He was a prince and so eligible for a queen-to-be. Heirs to thrones do not marry misters and misses."

"Then he was brave enough to break the tradition," I retorted, then bit my lip.

The king blinked and flushed. He pointed his finger at my nose, and then curled it with the others into a fist.

I kept my chin up and held my eyes on his. He's on my turf, and I'm near the door.

Slowly, Wilhelm lowered his fist, and then sank into a chair. "Women I do not harm," he muttered.

"Irene said you would harm her. That's why she kept the picture."

"Irene knew I would do all things to prevent scandal. But so had she a hot temper and steel will. She demanded I make her queen."

He looked down at the mound of magazines. "This Katherine looks like her," he mused aloud. "Brunette, like her. Vibrant expression. Slim and pliant as a reed, but as unbreakable." He finger-stroked Kate's picture. "Ja. Her expression is like Irene's. Irene spoke what she thought and did what she spoke. William is brave to marry such a woman, and also fortunate. She could be his strength when he is King, as George VI's wife was to him. And it appears she pleases the people."

He looked from the mound of magazines to me. "I long for Irene even now. You think me a coward and a cad because I did not marry the woman I loved. But what could I have done? Marry my lover? An opera singer, from a republic without a nobility?" He tossed the magazine my way. "Look at them, waving their flags. Shouting their approval of this wedding between their royal heir and a no-one. Did they for their King Edward? In my time, they would have brandished revolvers and ropes to force me from my realm for lèse-majesté to the sacred duties expected of kings. The English courtiers forced King Edward VIII to abdicate because he was stubborn enough to want a parvenu divorceé." He smiled. "I knew Wallis. We ex-kings meet at resorts like lodge-brothers meet at conventions. She was like Irene too – American and strong-willed."

"But not beautiful."

"But she was brunette. Now they want this pretty commoner." He looked down at the picture of Prince William and his bride, so happy to be wedded, and he swallowed hard.

"Would you have done the same, if you had another chance?" I asked softly.

"Ja. Nein. I do not know. I wanted to give Irene this," he said, holding up another magazine. "The ceremony in the Cathedral. The coronation at my side. I loved her, but she was not on my exalted level."

"Perhaps she was on a higher level, Sir."

He laughed. "Nein. She was an adventuress. I mean no insult. I admire her for staking her worth so high as my throne. What a queen she would have made! A republican actress queen!"

The laugh sounded hollow to me.


	18. The Woman Who Kissed Sherlock Holmes

**The Woman Who Kissed Sherlock Holmes**

_"You'll be interested to hear that I am engaged."_

_"My dear fellow! I congrat -"_

_"To Milverton's housemaid."_

_"Good heavens, Holmes!"_

_"I wanted information, Watson."_

_"Surely you have gone too far?"_

_"It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business, Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I wanted. I know Milverton's house as I know the palm of my hand."_

_"But the girl, Holmes?"_

_He shrugged his shoulders._

_"You can't help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best you can when such a stake is on the table. …"_

She could not have known how Charles Milverton made his money. A intelligent blackmailer picks servants as dumb as they come, and this one could give Marilyn Monroe lessons in acting clueless.

Still, Marilyn's dumb blondes were smart flirts, and Milverton's housemaid had that look of being wiser than she looked.

"You are the only woman in Dr. Watson's memoirs who kissed Sherlock Holmes," I began. "You were engaged, so you must have kissed."

"I didn't know he was Sherlock Holmes at the time. I thought he was Charlie Escott with a good plumbing business. If I had, I might've insisted on him marrying me."

"Or sued him for 'breach of promise'?"

"Oh, no! I'd want _him_, not his money. So masterful! And what a kisser!"

I had to ask. "He was good?"

She grinned like a kid who discovers hidden cake. "Was he! Lips. Mouth. Hands and …" She winked. "Let's just say he wasn't off me."

I was dumbfounded. _That_ good? Sherlock Holmes? I thought he dismissed the 'fair sex' to Watson.

"He was ever so insistent," the housemaid said, simpering. "But ever so nice. We'd walk out every evening and he'd buy me treats and take me to supper at Lyon's Corner House, and to the 'alls to see Vesta Tilley and Dan Leno perform. And late at night … Oooh! It was scrumptious bein' with him!" She hugged herself, her eyes shining. "Eight days after we met he proposed and I said 'yes'."

"I should've known he was a toff right off," she confided. "None of my other swains were so free with pampering and kisses. He right swept me off my feet. And so interested in all I said and did. He wanted to know all how I worked and where. So insistent to see every single room I been in." She giggled and repeated, "Every. Single. Room."

I caught on, and my breath nearly cut off. Sherlock Holmes in a woman's bedroom? I saw the movie; but … well, Holmes disliked and distrusted women. Dr. Watson said so. And Holmes was a gentleman. Wasn't he?

He said the stakes were high but would he play that deep a game?

The housemaid slowly licked her lower lip.

He did. It made sense. She would have demanded payment against the risk of Milverton sacking her for showing him around his house. A lover was excellent security; a fiancé even better.

"He jilted you," I reminded her.

Her face fell. She bit her lip. "It hurt." Then she brightened. "But Joe, my steady, was so miffed at being cut out that he perked up his attentions and now I'm engaged to him."

"But he's no Sherlock Holmes," she sighed.


End file.
